Episode Six: Farscape Earthfall
by Errationatus2
Summary: "Wherever You Go, There You Are". The Ancient called Hawking has sent Crichton, the crew of the Vengeance, Moya and Talyn through the wormhole to Earth. Scorpius is not far from completing his carrier and following... M for language, etc.
1. Chapter 1

**FARSCAPE**

**Previously, on _Farscape, the Freebooter Era_:**

_Crichton has finally uncovered Scorpius' plan: using Furlow, and records gained from Crais' old Carrier, Scorpius has pinpointed the location of the wormhole that originally deposited John Crichton in Peacekeeper space! Waiting only for his Command Carrier to be finished being fitted with the means to allow it to traverse the wormhole safely – while hiding in the V'masque Wasteland; he means to threaten Earth and force John to surrender the totality of his wormhole knowledge! Crichton knows he must get there before Scorpius does… and he has done so, but not in any manner he would have ever guessed!_

_

* * *

_

**AND NOW, ON FARSCAPE:**

**EARTHFALL:**

**…WHEREVER YOU GO, THERE YOU ARE…**

* * *

"_...I cannot hide what I am:_

_I must be sad when I have cause and smile at no man's jests,_

_eat when I have stomach and wait for no man's leisure,_

_sleep when I am drowsy and tend on no man's business,_

_laugh when I am merry and claw no man in his humour…"_

_**Don John,**_** Act One, Scene III, **_**Much Ado About Nothing**_

**William Shakespeare**

**

* * *

**

**P R O L O G U E**

**HE WASN'T THE KIND TO GIVE UP.**

He'd faced some rather daunting odds in his time. He'd stared death in the face a hundred times and flipped it off. He'd avoided obliteration half-a-dozen times by the slimmest of slim chances.

He'd had his encounter with the Ancients, finally, and this is how they'd left him:

He was in his favorite spacesuit - the one he'd found on the _Vengeance _– his 'hardsuit' - the one built for soldiers to fight in space, leaping from ship to ship, or 'hard-dropping' from orbit to a planet's surface - that made him look like he was wearing black samurai-like armor, with his guns and usual paraphernalia intact – and he was floating in orbit of the one planet he figured he'd never see again. No ship, no backup, his suit already low on oxygen, maybe four arns left.

Four arns to orbit Earth and contemplate his mortality.

He found himself laughing.

Somewhere down there was John Crichton and Aeryn Sun, no doubt happily up to their eyeballs in domestic dren, and the one they'd left behind to die in their stead had managed to come _all_ the way back to die alone and unnoticed on their doorstep – but he wasn't going to be alone for long.

_Scorpius was coming. _

So, this time he'd be long-gone mad and then dead of anoxia before he had to witness any of it. He wasn't sure if it were ironic, but it was pretty damn close.

Crichton tried to calculate where he was, decided he was in low orbit – not the most desired and stable of orbits especially when you wanted to _stay_ in orbit. He gave the Ancient more credit as he thought about it. His orbit would likely _decay_ rather _quickly_ – so he might just possibly enter Earth's atmosphere and _burn up_ before he ran out of oxygen. _Wicked sense of humor you've got there, Hawking_.

_Bastard._

Below him, Europe was rotating lazily left to right, a storm over Germany, clear skies over England. The Atlantic reflected the sunlight back up and the clouds below were cottony and white. A minute more, and North America rolled under, Canada swathed in cloud and the northern US likewise, the south clear. A cyclone was churning across the Pacific, away from any land. He couldn't see Australia. He waited until Japan came into view and then rolled himself onto his back.

Ah… there she was. The moon was a bright silver orb, following him around the Earth. John's father had landed right about… _there._ He looked out into the black, mused on how _flat _space actually looked. There were no stars to be seen – the reflected light from Earth and moon would be more than enough to hide them – if the sun's glare wasn't omnipresent.

_Well, what now? Wait until all the air runs out and suffocate, or just pull the suit decouplers and empty it all at once? Or just yank the helmet? Over in seconds then. I could wait and become a meteor. That'd be a pretty spectacular death. The V'rom of Pershets'm send their elderly into the beyond that way. How _do_ I want to die today?_

Crichton rolled back over, looked back down at the Earth. China and Russia rolling by. He flipped on his suit comm system, tuned through channels, seeing if he could tap in on any stations below. He picked up a few Asian stations, his microbes making it more interesting than it might have been. It was almost odd that they'd translate languages he knew so well – or at least knew to hear. He listened to the music for a while, some of the propaganda of the Communists still in power, tuned around.

Over Europe he managed the BBC International, learned about another 'war' in Iraq, climate change and immigration concerns, as well as whether Tony Blair would be remembered as a good leader or a warmonger. The even cadences of the English news reader were almost soothing, but he tuned out, not caring at all about the nonsense that passed for "important" on this stupid rock. One Carrier in orbit would make it all seem rather pointless, petty and pathetic, anyway. He thought, with a moment of black humor, that it might be worth letting the one on its way actually come.

As the Atlantic rolled over, he knew he was getting closer to that with which he remembered was most familiar – endless ads for useless crap, endless hip-hop stations and the shrill bleating 'infotainment' noise that passed as news in North America. He tuned around, found a music station he liked, closed his eye and just listened. He'd not heard anything like this in a long time, and he'd actually …missed it.

It almost sounded like …home. That snapped his eye open again, and he contemplated his own reflection on the inside of his visor. It looked back at him, skeptical.

_Home._

Interesting concept. He shut the radio off. _Almost_. He'd almost let this backward planet lull him into lying to himself.

_His_ birthplace had shredded itself in a frenzy of agony, as John and Chi, D, Jool and himself had high-tailed it the hell away. Everyone left on Rovhu had went when the Leviathan went. Kaarvok would copy no one else.

He was the only one of his kind now. Kaarvok's Creature had no home, only space. Only the stars. Only the cold, empty places in-between.

Seemed appropriate though, that he should have been born amidst despair and horror. It fit so well with the motifs that ran through his dreams, through his life.

Down there was coffee and ice cream, cheeseburgers, fries, and deep-fried chicken by the bucket, smooth brown girls in thong bikinis and rock 'n' roll and the blues and smoky jazz clubs, pay television, race cars, movies, Thai food and twelve-year-old Scottish scotch and _real_ frelling beer – and one man who could make the whole Galaxy go away if Scorpius ever got his hands on him.

He couldn't do a thing about it. If he'd even needed any more proof that he was not a legit Crichton, the choice of execution "Hawking" had chosen was poetry indeed.

He'd _tried,_ though. He had tried to do the right thing. He hadn't had to, y'know, but he went for it. It had cost him an eye and friends and the hope for a life.

He'd tried.

* * *

"**Oh, dear,"** Harvey said, startling him from his reverie. He was floating alongside Crichton over the slowly-spinning Earth below.

"What? You don't like the view?"

"The view is spectacular, John. That is hardly my concern."

"Right. Fiery death. Needs adjustment."

"Most definitely. Do you have a plan?"

"A plan? For _this_? I appreciate the faith, but you're frelling _crazy_, Harve. We're in _orbit._ No ship, no jetpack, no rocket-pants. Savvy?"

"This is not the way I had hoped we would end our days."

Crichton snorted an ironic snort.

"No shit, Sherlock. You're the supposed genius. _You_ figure something out."

He waited, stared at Harvey for a good two minutes. Harvey appeared to be thinking as fast as he could. After another two minutes he looked defeated.

"Yeah. Pain in the ass, ain't it? You take the cards you're dealt, and all those other stupid clichés. Go away, if you have nothing useful to contribute."

Harve sighed the largest sigh of his benighted existence and vanished.

* * *

**He rolled** himself back over so that he was looking into space, turned off his radio completely and closed his eye.

Yeah, he'd done everything he could. He'd always known he was living on borrowed time anyway, and his death would not change much of anything. His crew knew that if they never heard from him again what they were supposed to do. Well, _Shiv_ did. Scorpius would still be stopped, and the frelling Crichtons could live happily ever after. His crew would have a helluva ship and the keys to a rather substantial amount of loot. The knowledge of wormholes would be safe from the universe at large.

All-in-all, not too shabby. It hadn't been finished conclusively, not in the way he'd have liked, not how he had planned, but beggars couldn't be choosers. He'd expected to die from a pulse blast, or in the spectacular explosion of his ship, or some incredible display of pyrotechnics as he took out Scorpy once and for all, ruined his plans and laughed in his face, something of his own choosing, but this was okay.

_Live, die, neither mattered, as long as you chose._

He had chosen.

Crichton relaxed, let his arms and legs float, flipped off fate, checked his oxygen. Three arns. His entire body ached.

He closed his eye, let the weariness wash over him, lull him. He was always tired, he noticed. Always. He slept, but he never rested.

"_One hundred bottles of beer on the wall…_ "

* * *

**HE'D COUNTED DOWN TO SIXTY-FIVE BOTTLES** when …something… prompted him to open his eye. He was looking into the black of space, saw nothing, rolled over. He was over the Atlantic, his rolling onto his back and flipside must have altered his vector or something, as he was 'lower', now, orbiting toward the southern US. He wouldn't have thought he could have altered his orbit by _that_ much just doing that, but he must have, because here he was. What caught his eye was a pillar of fire rising slowly from below.

_What the frell? A shuttle launch?_

A quick command to his onboards dropped the HUD over his visor and he used the suit's camera to zoom in on the rising plume. Shuttle confirmed, and rising fast. In about two minutes, he'd be almost directly over its ascent vector. He killed the magnification, thought a moment.

If you'd asked him afterward, he couldn't have told you why he decided to do what he did. He didn't know himself. Something reared up and snarled at the idea of meekly surrendering to death. Laying there and taking it just wasn't his style.

He sucked a few deep breaths in, felt preternaturally calm – remembered D'Argo telling John once that calmness "heralded the certainty of death", smiled grimly at the memory and rolled himself into a ball, head pointed at the Earth below, and using an arn's worth of air from his suit as a propellant – kicked himself toward the planet.

* * *

**HE NEVER UNDERSTOOD HOW, BUT IT MADE IT INTO THE LEGENDS.**

As he plummeted, Crichton uncoiled from the ball, tried to orient himself. His suit made him heavier than he would be normally, increased his mass, so he fell a bit faster than he would have otherwise. Air resistance was practically non-existent at these heights.

He had a quick flash of how suicidal-crazy what he was doing truly was, but just shrugged it off. Frell it – he had nothing to lose.

His suit had started to get warm, not much, as friction from the air was still low, and he activated the anti-glare filter on his visor verbally, could see the shuttle literally a few miles below him, that big orange booster coming at him like a giant bullet.

Not that that was all that impressive. _He _was approaching almost a thousand kilometres an hour _without a ship at all_, plummeting at almost 300 meters a second, the thinness of the upper atmosphere exerting almost no upward pressure on him. He would fall for approximately 9 or so minutes at this speed before gravity took lethal notice and started to really exert some grip. If he remembered correctly, he would then have just under two minutes or so as he achieved terminal velocity and air pressure balanced him out – and slowed him down. Three minutes after that, he would hit the ground, with luck only doing on or about 195 kph, which was _just _in his suit's survivability range. It was, after all, designed for precisely what he was doing – well, more or less.

If he kept arms and legs splayed like a sky diver – he'd fall at around a paltry 220 kph. It would be a little too fast when he got low enough. The acceleration gauge told him that he was already comfortably above that. Somehow, he had to slow himself down by at _least_ 40 kph.

At what seemed a stone's throw away, the Space Shuttle was streaking up, up, and then by him, and he had the most unique view of it of anyone in history as it passed, not more than a hundred meters away from him. He didn't ponder it. His suit's gauges were starting to protest that it would soon be far too hot for comfort, and too close to the suit's heat failure threshold. With some effort, he rolled over, pointed his back at the ground and activated the suit's ablation shield, which unfolded, putting him in a flexi-ceramic half-shell that took some of the heat, bled off some acceleration. His gauge said: not enough.

_Crap._

Above him now, the big orange booster climbed rapidly, and the two auxiliary ones to the side separated from that.

He watched them tumble, saw the contrails spring from them as they fell, re-entered Earth's atmosphere.

Crichton suddenly remembered that those boosters were what the IASA boys called "recoverable vectors."

They had _parachutes._

A quick glance showed the shuttle vanishing rapidly into space, and then he noticed a hollow, bright-hot section tumbling _directly at him_.

_No frelling way!_ his brain shouted at him. The rapidly-cooling tube rolled down, flipping end-over-end, and Crichton saw its shadow cross over him. It was falling faster than he was, because it was heavier by a considerable margin… the booster tumbled toward him, aiming to go past him, almost balletic, seeming to slow as it passed, he could almost reach out and touch it…

…without thinking Crichton retracted the ablation shield and tucked his arms and legs in, accelerated toward the booster section. He came closer, watched it flip end-over-end, did all he could to keep pace with it. One moment he'd come so close he could almost reach out and touch it, and it was all he could do to avoid having the thing bat him away as it flipped over.

He had the absolute _slimmest_ of slim chances. His suit had a layer of impact-absorbing gel, stuff they used as inertial cushioning in starships. It was meant to help absorb the gravities of what they called 'hard drops' - assault insertions to a planet's surface from space – of course, they also had _drop-pods_ to do what he was doing now, and to take up a hunk of the impact. If luck was with him, he could use that booster and its parachutes to slow his descent just enough for his ablation shield and impact gel to _be_ enough – maybe. He could lock the actuators in the suit – the load-assisting ones, the ones that made him 'stronger' while in it - make the suit even more of a shield around him – but he'd have to do that just before he hit the surface.

Tricky, but not impossible.

That's why he'd pushed himself into the plunge. A chance was a chance was a chance. Yeah, maybe he'd tried - cry himself a frelling river - but damn it all to hell, he wasn't beaten just yet. If he failed, well _hell_, it'd be one _spectacular_ failure – and it'd be a failure on his _own_ terms.

The booster had been a happy accident.

Right?

His onboards told him that air pressure was increasing, and though he couldn't actually see it, acceleration gauges indicated that he would soon be approaching a relatively steady descent speed. The booster section was still falling faster than he, but once they both fell far enough, it's parachutes would easily slow it into the survivability range of his suit if he needed to kick off. He had, at most, two minutes to catch the thing.

As plans went, it was up there with his absolute craziest.

He continued to splay and stoop, splay to slow, tuck in limbs to stoop like a falcon and accelerate, getting incrementally closer and in a position near the tube he wanted. He was watching its tumble, calculating… he pulled in next to it on his last stoop, splayed and managed finally to keep pace with it, but he knew he had only microts.

Just as the tube swung past, he activated the magnetic coils in his boots and gloves, turned them up to their highest intensity, and rolled himself in under the tube as it tumbled directly at him. The impact drove the air out of his lungs, dazed him for a few seconds, but the magnetics _held. _

He'd gone from pursuer to passenger.

He turned down the magnetics until a hand was pulled free and then evened it out. He focused his eye down to the surface of the tube, counting rivets, trying to ignore the whipping of the scenery around and around – the last thing he wanted was to throw up in his helmet. The booster slowed in its roll, wind resistance balancing out its fall. Crichton checked his temperature gauges, all in the green, the tube's steel shielding him from the majority of the friction and the heat it generated, allowed himself a fierce grin and then risked a look out across its surface.

The tube stabilized, falling horizontally, and then the parachutes deployed, jerking it vertical. He was almost thrown off the side, but his magnetics held. Crichton knew he had two choices: stay on the booster until it hit the ocean, and then surrender to the pickup crews who came to retrieve it, or kick off and hope his suit could function in sea water. Spacesuits and scuba gear were not even remotely the same thing, however. He also had to hope that hitting the water didn't exceed the impact capacity of his suit – especially with the weight of the booster conceivably above him.

_Sink or swim? _He knew that two specialized retrieval ships from IASA – the _Liberty's Sun _and the_ Freedom Wave_ - what they were called in John's memories, at any rate - would already be on their way to recover the boosters for reuse. Each had a crew of 24 - but, as far as he knew, no soldiers, no heavy arms.

Well, then.

He'd just have to improvise.

* * *

**SOMETHING CRACKLED, POPPED, ROUSING HER.**

The acrid smell of burnt circuitry hung in the air, the smell of spent Chakkan oil, blood, metal and plastic. The _Vengeance_ was dark, main power offline. Her wits returning, she began assessing her surroundings with more detail. To her right, a crimson light blinked, above that, two blue ones pulsed a separate beat in tandem. She knew what that meant, just couldn't remember at the moment. There was a weight on her chest, and with a start she remembered it was a 'borg.

A _dead_ 'borg. She'd managed to kill it before it'd plowed into her.

With a muttered imprecation, Miriya Breannados thrust the corpse from her, pulled herself to her knees, using the console before her as leverage.

She looked over the controls, realized that the _Vengeance's_ main computer was out, the backup in standby mode, and groggily hit a few switches, bringing the ship back to minimum life. Red emergency lights boosted on, machinery fired back to life. She heard the whirr of atmosphere scrubbers kick in, the air beginning to clear. Fortunately, there were no fires. Suppression protocols had activated, and handled any that had flared. That red light and those two blue yet blinked. She suddenly remembered what they meant, checked.

_What the frell…?_

On the pilot station, she noticed 1812, dark and silent. The droid had his cannon deployed, and she suddenly suspected that she might actually owe the thing her life.

"Hey," she reached over, slapped the DRD on the flank. "Wake up." 1812 squeaked, came to life. "In one piece?" A chirp. She pointed to the lights. "The mains are down. Go see what you can do." Another chirp, and 1812 sped off.

_Hez_mana… she checked the door – wide open. She grimaced as pain shot through her head. She felt gingerly at the main locus of the pain, felt a large lump on her head.

"Well, my present situation is 'among the living'." Miriya told the bulkhead. "My head is the least of my problems."

"And..." She looked around, pursed her lips. "We appear to be in one piece. So far."

Miriya sat down, ran what diagnostics she could. All was not well, but far better than she'd expected.

_Frell - power failures all over. The mains are down, and everything aft of the treblinside thruster assemblies is dark._ She shook his head. _No eyes or ears, either._

She glanced back at the corpse on the floor.

_That was close. Too close_. She looked out the open door to see a set of boots in the access way. Another 'borg lay out there. Had she managed to kill that one? She couldn't remember.

"Chak'sa? Shiv?" Miriya tried the comms. Even as she did, Chak'sa thrust her head into the Command-pit.

"Are you all right?" she inquired. She appeared to have a large burn across her face and neck. A nod answered her question. Miriya looked back from her diagnostic, saw the burn.

"You need help for that?" Chak'sa shook her head. Burns were not something Scarrans worried overmuch about.

"It is superficial." She looked down at the dead 'Borg. "We have three more of those onboard. All dead. I cannot find Shivi'na." She frowned. "We also have several open external hatches." Miriya blinked. Not really a surprise, but she would have thought emergency protocols would have closed them – well, they were still alive with atmosphere, so they were somewhere – _safe_ was a relative term.

"I can't do any internal scans. We must be in atmos, if we have open hatches and no depressurization. We'll have to look for Shiv the old fashioned way."

They went aft, separated. Miriya checked the main computer core. _Four. Not bad against 'Borg,_ she thought, seeing the inert form of another. It had been neatly bisected by something very sharp. She checked it over – it still clutched a black box that she recognized as one of the _Vengeance's_ AI slaved-'lightboxes': a CPU that used silicon-based lasers to utilize photons to process data. The technology was a little _old, _ but it was adequate. The _Vengeance's _AI had twelve of them. She took it, reinserted it, restarted the computer's boot sequence. The ship went dark for a few moments, then returned to partial life.

"Frell. At least it's something."Miriya muttered. She hit her comm. "Have to go back to the secondary work bay and trace a line for some sensors. We're blind in here."

"_I will do it_." Chak'sa told her, not waiting for a reply. A pause. _"Hatches have closed."_ Miriya just shrugged and returned to the Command Deck.

Miriya had activated one of the small, independently-powered cameras on the hull of the ship – meant to allow them to check their surroundings, even if trapped, which, at the moment, they effectively were. She peered out, saw an island, angry water, heavy downpour and whipping wind. Definitely planetside, then.

"Where the frell are we?" She muttered, turned back into the dark of the interior, found a locker, pulled out a light, went to the main computer area. "And …where the frell is that damned Revenger?"

Miriya tried the emergency power, cursed to find _still _only half her systems respond, went aft, darkly muttering various dooms on the designers of the things, spent a third of an arn with Chak'sa wrestling with it and getting it finally working.

Back in the Ops area, she checked her now-all-up systems (_after querying the AI extensively to the point she could have sworn the normally-emotionless computer was becoming exasperated_), realized the _Vengeance_ had come down and come down hard. They were nose-deep somewhere reasonably soft, but she couldn't tell damage-extents just yet. Couldn't have been _too_ bad – she'd designed this ship to survive one Hezmana of a lot.

What telemetry she could call up showed they had fallen fast and far, and their stealth system had been intermittent. She couldn't find anything sophisticated out there technology-wise, and knew she wouldn't until she could find and repair whatever damage they had incurred, get main power back up. She patted the console before her.

The _Vengeance_ had survived quite well, and Miriya congratulated herself. She built better than well. She batted away on the controls before her for a few moments, managed at least a ship-round scan of several hundred motras.

_There it is._ She locked onto it. The Revenger was just twenty motras away, two-thirds submerged, literally dead in the water. She heard her companion coming back, turned to watch her enter.

"No Shiv, I take it?" Chak'sa shook her head. "That figures." A nod. Miriya licked her lips, thought. The _Vengeance_ had been grappled by the Revenger. John was nowhere on the ship, and Miriya had an uneasy feeling that he'd been ejected from it at some point prior to the wormhole gulping them down. She wasn't sure how she knew that, but she was very certain that that is what happened.

What, Miriya wondered, were the odds of Shiv being alive, or of Crichton being alive? What were the odds of_ any_ of them being alive? She shrugged internally, looked around. So far, as disasters went, this one was going better than expected. Go with that.

_Dren._ They couldn't do anything until the _Vengeance_ was shipshape and could tell them exactly where they were.

What did John always say was his motto? Oh, yes.

"First things first," she muttered, eliciting another nod from the Scarran gladiator. "Let's get this ship running. Everything else can wait." She _hoped_ it could wait, as she went back to the computer core and Chak'sa went aft to the engines.

She suddenly had an odd premonition that she knew _already_ where they were – and she knew it was the _last_ place Crichton had wanted any of them to be.

* * *

**SHIV AWAKENED SLOWLY,** uncharacteristically, the distant sound of wind about her.

The ship had landed hard. The Revenger had been built to be tough, like all Peacekeeper ships, but even it couldn't stand a pounding from _Vengeance_, wormhole _and_ pell-mell plummet. Smoke drifted lazily through the smashed compartment, just off the Command Deck. Shiv had managed to kill the remaining crew when the ship had suddenly rolled, all internal power vanished and she was tossed about like a pinka nut in a infant's rattle. She had hit the floor – or a wall, or the ceiling, she could not be certain – with tremendous force and had been rendered unconscious. She knew, however, that every 'borg she had confronted was well and truly dead.

She sat up gingerly, checked herself over - her left side, from bottom rib to her left breast hurt rather quite a bit. Pulling off her interlocked cuirass of blades, and peeling her tunic top up revealed a large bruise, from hip to collarbone, wrapping around her slim side. Shiv flexed her chest muscles and shoulders, left arm and back muscles. A considerable amount of pain, but nothing was broken. She pulled her tunic back down, put her blades back in their place and then focused her mind away from any pain she had. It was of no consequence. Her movement was impeded by it by only a small percentage, and while not at an optimum she preferred, she was fairly certain that it would still far outclass most kinds of opposition.

She paused for a few heartbeats to calm herself and centre her mind:

_I am. I live in a perpetual Now surrounded by relics of the Past. Where I am, there I am. I seek nothing, I desire nothing, I exist. That is enough._

The litany, as always, brought her focus down and sharply on the necessities of the now. With a sigh no one would have heard, Shiv looked about, the ship obviously still at a sharp angle wherever it had crashed. She made her way to the pilot's chair and reached over, tried a scan, but this ship was dead.

Somewhere in all that, she had also lost her comm.

Shaking her head slightly, she made her way from the Command back toward the hatchway she had at first boarded this ship.

The Revenger was in pieces internally. She picked her way through the silent corridors, a few with blown-out walls or shorting circuitry, finally coming across a dead 'borg - down, inoperative – cut to ribbons by her blades. She did not remember killing this one, frowned. At a corridor junction, another, cut neatly in two, shoulder-to-side. She found two other 'borg, these obviously dead, crushed by a caved-in bulkhead, at last came to the hatchway, but it was crumpled. Outside, wind howled and she could see water sloshing through the cracks. Peering out, she saw that the ship was partially submerged, realized she needed an alternative route out.

She did not see the eyes watching her do it.


	2. Chapter 2

**"YOUR STATUS?"** Crais asked.

His head hurt, pounded, and Talyn answered, indicated that he was registering a great many minor pains and discomforts all over – but no damage past the superficial.

"Can you determine our location?" Crais asked, trying to augment it with a manual scan. Talyn indicated he sensed a planet some distance away, a gas giant with multiple satellites. The giant was giving off a great deal of radio noise, which was not unusual for such a one. None of the moons were inhabited. He was detecting a rather bright radio source beyond the gas giant, but could not determine if it were natural or artificial. Talyn informed him he had a rather nasty knot on his head, sent a pulse through their linkage that caused the pain to ebb off, for which Crais thanked him. The integration of Elack must be almost complete, he thought, as only remnants ghosted through Talyn's mind, coaxing a desire to explore, which Crais had to suppress, but admitted to himself that the urge was a most attractive one.

"Can you scan for Moya, or the _Vengeance_, please?" He asked, trying to get his head clear. After a few moments, Talyn reported he could not sense the _Vengeance, _but had found his mother, floating several thousand metras away. He contacted her, but she seemed unconscious. Crais hit the Moya comm he kept.

"Captain D'Argo? Anyone?"

He waited several tense moments, then the even cadences of Evigan Koiban came through clearly.

"_Captain Crais? We are functional. Moya and Pilot seem both to be …unconscious. Can that happen to Leviathans?"_

"Yes. The others?"

"_We're fine." _Came a gruff Luxan reply. "_Remind me not to book my next vacation via wormhole travel."_

Even as Talyn scanned and Crais watched, the lights on Moya suddenly came on, flickered and brightened.

"Pilot? Are you and Moya all right?"

"_We are_ _operational._" Pilot told him, sounding groggy. "_The rather riotous waveforms in the wormhole disoriented Moya's senses. Mine as well._" His voice strengthened._ "She and I both passed out from sensory overload._ _Other than some minor cosmetic damage, we are perfectly fine, and completely operational."_

"_Crichton…"_ Chiana said, remembering.

"_Talyn can find no trace of him or his ship_."

"_Nor Moya."_

She turned troubled eyes on D'Argo.

"He was sucked down it in his suit – no ship, nothing. We saw it as we came into that yotz." She looked over at Koiban. "Could he even survive a trip through the wormhole without a ship?"

Koiban didn't know, and told her so. Pilot had news no one wanted to hear, however.

"_Chiana, Moya says she experienced rather violent torsional stresses on her as she traversed the wormhole. But, she is built to take such… she wishes it were different, but she feels no one could survive those unshielded_."

Chiana looked cross. _That was unfair!_

"So he's dead?"

No one answered her.

"You wanna _give up_?" She growled at them.

"_What do you suggest we do, Chiana?" _Crais asked. _"We are somewhere on the other side of that wormhole. Which means we could be _anywhere_. If the _Vengeance_ came through this same one, Talyn cannot find it to the extent of his sense horizon_. _We have no way of knowing anything at this point._"

"Pilot…" D'Argo asked, knowing that Chiana would resent him for it. "Where _did_ we end up?" Her dark eyes hardened as he said it, but they had to know.

"_I'm not sure. I cannot find any familiar spatial coordinates or constellational landmarks_." There was a brief pause. "_Moya scans several gas giants planets and several metallic composites further in to the central star. Unusual - one of the small bodies is broadcasting an enormous amount of radio noise, but I'm not detecting any heavy radiation sources from it_."

"_Talyn concurs with Moya, D'Argo. He thinks the noise may be being broadcast on several different distinct frequencies, but he cannot be sure."_

"Distinct frequencies would imply _artificial _sources, would it not?" Koiban asked, making his way to the scan console. "We may be getting overlap from this gas giant nearby."

"Pilot – let's head deeper into the system – toward that radio source. It may be masking any scans of the _Vengeance_. It_ is_ a stealth vessel. They may be using the noise to hide in."

"_An excellent idea, Captain."_ Crais broke in. "_Talyn insists on leading the way – just in case."_

"Very well. Go." Moya began to turn as Talyn banked smoothly over her and proceeded ahead. D'Argo watched him go, glanced back at Chiana. She caught him.

"What?" she shot at him.

"We don't know he's dead, Chiana. He's not …_normal_, you know that."

Chiana sat at the Ops table, crossed her arms, put her head down.

"You heard Pilot. _Moya_ was put under strain by the trip. Crichton had no ship."

"But he had an armored spacesuit," Koiban added hopefully. "A Heavy Assault class. Those are designed for leaping from ship-to-ship in heavy combat situations. I've seen soldiers get clipped by fighter craft in one of those things, get slammed into the side of a capital ship and come up fighting after a few microts."

"You're an abysmal liar, Evigan." She told him fatalistically. "Thanks, though." Koiban just nodded, went back to his scans.

As they neared the radio source, D'Argo checked with Pilot again.

"Pilot – _full_ operational status?_"_

"_We are optimal, Captain. Damage was minimal. My DRDs are repairing all there was, which was mostly superficial."_

"Excellent." He felt better for that, trying to calm his nerves any way he could.

"_Moya is feeling rather … cautious, Captain. Something about this system unsettles her._"

"Anything specific?"

"_It is more an… intuition she says. She cannot explain it any better._"

"We will be vigilant. Please broadcast those signals. Perhaps we can hear something in the noise." D'Argo told him, and Pilot nodded, disappeared from the clamshell. A moment later and the crackle and buzz of the radio source ahead bounced around Command.

"I admit to some apprehension myself," He told Chiana out of nowhere, who nodded.

"Things are different," she said, and D'Argo thought at what an understatement that was – different indeed. He saw a small silver moon hove into view, beyond that the radio source: a bright blue ball streaked with white. As they got closer, the radio signals began to sort themselves out.

"Impossible…" he intoned as the voices washed over Command. Chiana's head slowly came up. He was staring at the planet, turned to stare at her.

"Not much is normal, you said," she answered his look. "Why not this too?"

"Crais…" D'Argo commed.

"_Yes, Captain. We hear it_."

D'Argo found himself sitting heavily as the voice spoke in mellow tones over the internal sound grid:

"_IASA spokesman Lee Shapiro stated that the shuttle Aurora had a flawless launch today. Ground-based tracking systems confirmed that the Aurora passed into Earth's orbit with no difficulties."_

Pilot shut it off.

"_We know where we are now, I think_." He said. "_Scanning the planet's surface_."

"Earth." Chiana said, scarcely believing it. "How the _frell_… how'd we end up so far away from it?" She looked at the others.

"Very peculiar. Who knows how they work?" Koiban added. "Except Crichton, of course."

"_Frell_. Pilot," D'Argo interjected. "Let's get behind this moon. Crichton's people may not have extensive spaceflight capabilities, but they do have orbital stations and satellites."

Pilot agreed, and Moya changed her course, went in low over Earth's only natural satellite. Talyn followed them back.

"_No trace of truly sophisticated technology in orbit." _Pilot announced. "_A rudimentary station, several thousand inoperative pieces… junk… about a hundred or so broadcasting satellites._ _I am running extensive scans of Earth and cannot find any identifiable trace of Crichton's ship."_

"Nothing? I could have sworn they were sucked into that thing! They went through latched onto that Revenger!" Chiana said, slamming a fist onto the table before her. "If we were spat out here, there should be _something_."

A few moments went by and Pilot answered, _"I cannot say for certain, Chiana. I am, however, detecting an odd radiation spike here." _The forward portal lit up, with an image of Earth and a small bright spot glowing on it. "_Normally, I would think it were an open Hetch-drive – levels are consistent with one_._"_

"Not the _Vengeance._ If _it _crashed, it'd leave a _lot _more spillage than that." Chiana said with certainty.

"And those news reports would likely be speaking of nothing but." Koiban added to her nod.

"_Odd…" _Pilot added_. "I am also detecting what would seem to be another – here. And here."_

A different spot appeared on the image, some distance away from the first, much farther north.

"_Three_ Hetch-drives?" Chiana asked. "I thought these frellniks didn't have that kind of technology."

"That's not impossible." D'Argo told her. "They've had help."

"The other Crichton." Koiban said.

"They've been busy, then" she replied with no little disdain.

"Chiana…"

"What, D'Argo? Am I _supposed_ to care?" She flounced up to the Ops table, sat on it. "Am I supposed to give a flying frell about either one of them? Not even a pleeking goodbye!_ They_ _ran out on_ _us_."

"No, Chiana, they didn't, not really. I think that that was inevitable – they're leaving, I mean." D'Argo sounded as if they'd had this particular conversation a thousand times already – which they had, more or less. "What's important are that our opinions on their relationship are irrelevant. We're only concerned with what's happening _now_."

"Fine. We're not going to go there, though. We're not asking for their help. We're _not_, D'Argo. If I see either, I'll frelling _shoot_ them."

"You won't, Chiana." D'Argo said, calmly. "We have other concerns_._"

"Frelling right we do," Chiana replied frostily. "The simple fact is that the _only_ reason we're even in this mess is because of _them_. He brought us here or sent us here – somehow. He _obsesses_, and you all know it."

"What would you suggest, Chiana?" D'Argo asked, both mildly cross and curious. "We have Crichton mind-wiped? I don't think he'd sit still for that."

"We've _all_ thought often enough - the most expedient and safest – thing we _can_ do, and since no one else has the mivonks to say it – I will: _kill_ the other Crichton. _He's_ the frelling problem! We're _here_. We could solve everything _right now_."

"_Chiana does have a point,"_ Pilot added. _"From the little I've seen of this wormhole theory – complete access to any derivative technology is… well, the results could be beyond horrific. We are literally talking destruction on a planetary – on a potentially interstellar scale. The quickest way would be to simply eradicate this other Crichton – if he's as dangerous as you all believe with his knowledge free and open."_ To Chiana's nod he nodded, but he quickly dashed any sense of solidarity. _"But then, I'm not the one who'll decide – and I can't see any real reason to do it. If the Crichtons are the same, as everyone seems to think, then this other one has already considered it, as likely as not. The reason he left may have been to simply safeguard the knowledge – it is no easy feat getting here. Safest place for it, really. " _He paused. Chiana looked thoughtful. Koiban added, "It's all well and good to have an opinion, but it's not for us to say."

"It's our lives too, Koi-boy." Chiana rejoined.

"And?" He smiled at her. "This is hardly the _first_ time you have stuck your neck out for Crichton."

"They have a point." D'Argo tried a grin of his own at her.

Chiana just sighed, sat down, but she was having none of it.

"Not that Crichton." She jabbed a sharp finger at the portal and the blue planet thereon. "Not. Anymore."

"We'll do what we can." D'Argo told her. "And Crichton is Crichton, no matter how many of him there may be. You_ know_ that, Chiana." Chiana frowned, but jerked her head in a sharp nod at him, and D'Argo turned to address Pilot, but was interrupted.

Pilot had just received a direct communication, he told them, from a most unexpected caller.

From Earth.

* * *

**SHIV CLIMBED STEADILY UPWARD.**

In an auxiliary maintenance tube, she made her way to the dorsal of the Revenger. The Revenger was no small ship – it had easily been twice the size of the _Vengeance_, and she did not know it nearly so well.

The tube, dark and silent around her led her into her own thoughts. She'd chased 'borg onto a ship full of others like it and subsequently dragged through a wormhole. She could hear him now, berating her not "to confuse loyalty with suicide". She was in no hurry to commit suicide, although she did not fear the idea. It was, after all, part of her makeup – hunt, stalk, never be stopped, caught or fail – make her one Perfect Kill – make it with all the consummate skill at her command, sure, precise, silent and instantaneous, so that the victim simply passed from existence to oblivion with no sense of the transition, and then to return home, to be stripped and wiped of those memories and then erase herself from existence.

She would then be harvested for her DNA and it and those memories recycled into the next generation of Blade Maidens, eventually to reach the Day of The Perfection, the ultimate creation of the finest warrior the Galaxy had or would ever see. She would be worth a hundred of any other, unstoppable, the Paragon of Warriors. From Her would be birthed an army of such surpassing skill the Fabricators would rule and bring Calmness and Ultimate Concord to the riotous calamity that was the Universe.

It was Shiv's utter honor to be even a small drop in that Grand Plan.

Something had, however, gone wrong with her part in it, and even Shiv didn't know what it had been. She had not followed the generations that had preceded her. Poised on the verge of her Perfect Kill, she had hesitated. Everything had gone perfectly – up to that point.

For the first and only time in her existence, Shiv had been …afraid.

Everything leading to that moment had been exhilarating, the ultimate experience of her life, tension and talent in ideal balance, as it should have been – yet she had hesitated at the moment of its consummation, the knowledge that that perfect moment meant her extinction had driven a wedge of fear into the moment, and she had withdrawn. Ever since, Shiv had been trying to recapture those moments, in an attempt to evoke that fear so that she could understand it. It had yet to happen. She had come close, once or twice – her reason for attaching herself to those the so-called "Civilized" called outlaws, pirates and criminals – for they lived lives on the edges she sought, even if she did hold herself aloof from those same lives. They generally welcomed her into their ranks, for her skills, or her looks (_which should have been of no consequence_), or any number of reasons she never understood. None, however, had ever invoked her loyalty – save _Crichton_. The reason for _that_ eluded her as well. Perhaps he would provide that experience simply because of the life he led. Perhaps it was simple curiosity. No matter.

Invoke it he had, and she was nothing if not a female of her word, and it gave her a sense of mission. All she need do was find an exit, return to space and do her best to locate the _Vengeance_. She was not fully confident of the odds of that happening – for according to Crichton, a wormhole could theoretically take one literally anywhere.

Shiv's instincts told her to stop. She froze in the tube, senses heightened. Somewhere below her it came – a faint, almost imperceptible rhythmic squeak of metal on metal. Even as she looked below, something rushed up the tube at her, and Shiv gasped in surprise.

It became a surreal freefall fight – the 'borg, as Shiv could see it now – had hit her hard, knocked her loose from her grip and they had tumbled back down the long shaft. The 'borg slashed with iron fingers and ripped at her with paranormal strength as they fell. Shiv cut the thing to ribbons on the way down, managed to inflict serious damage even as she bounced from the shaft's walls, being dazed and disoriented.

Shiv's far-superior spatial reckoning prevailed in the end, however. Before they hit the floor, Shiv made certain _she_ was on top – and the 'borg took the majority of the impact.

That's how Chak'sa found her a half-arn later, unconscious but alive. An examination of the shaft had shown the fall, splashed with Shiv's pale-blue faintly florescent blood and the 'borg's black ichor.

With exquisite care and effortless strength, Chak'sa carried the injured Blade Maiden back up the shaft, marveling once again at her skill, and very glad that Shiv was an ally.

* * *

**CAPTAIN GEOFFRY ROBBINS** of the _Liberty's Sun _had been a Navy man his whole life. He'd fought in the closing months of Vietnam, and in the first Bush's Gulf War, and he'd began to wonder if spending his days retrieving empty boosters for IASA was a step down – or up; but then, to listen to his wife, it was far more lucrative and far less dangerous.

At least, that was the general idea.

"Say that again?"

"_To shore. Seemed pretty straightforward to me."_

The gun stayed steady. It was in the hand of a man wearing an odd black, heavy suit, helmet and all. Robbins had seen a great many spacesuits – because that's what this suit reminded him of, but none like this. This was black and armored and looked rather intimidating. On the large plate covering his left deltoid was a vicious-looking skull and crossbones. The faceplate on his helmet was mirrored, and his features couldn't be seen. He could see nothing on it except his own craggy face and tired eyes.

They had found him seated comfortably on the booster they'd come to retrieve. At first, Robbins thought Roger Tobias, his first mate, had been pulling his leg, when he'd told him that there was someone actually out there _sitting_ on the thing. He'd seen it, believed it and when the man had been brought on board, then had pulled a gun – and blown a hole in a deck plate as evidence the funny-looking thing _was_ actually a gun – wished he'd just stayed in bed this morning.

"You realize you're committing a serious crime?"

The gun came close, tapped him on the forehead.

_"Would you care to suggest how stupid I am - again?"_

Robbins was no hero. Nor was he a coward. He had a thickening, shrilly-bleating wife who seemed to be getting a little too conservatively religious as she aged, which certainly wasn't going to help her tolerability at all; one minute whining about "greasy" foreigners, and the next whining about the kids, wondering if their son Tony was gay (_he wasn't_) and why Liza, their daughter, didn't have a man yet (_she_ was _gay_), two cars and a mortgage that they would never pay off. Also, he _was_ three weeks from early retirement – and there _was_ that near-his-age technician named Gloria back at Kennedy that _really_ liked him and kept herself in exceedingly good shape… he sighed quietly to himself.

Technically, on shore, this hijacker would be local authorities' problem.

The hell with it. He'd hate himself later.

"Anywhere in particular ashore?"

_"Somewhere quiet, near civilization – but not too close."_

Okay. Whatever. He had a multi-million dollar booster to recover, and he'd like to do it before it sprung a leak or something and sank. He'd find out about this guy soon enough, probably read it in the papers. Protocol said to basically get rid of him - drop the guy off, inform local law, fill out paperwork and get on with his job. Don't damage the ship, don't risk his crew's lives. Easy.

He could do that.

Robbins asked Tobias, "What's closest to us?", was told "St. Augustine".

He ordered the ship to alter course.

"St. Augustine has a marina, but I'm fairly certain that's too public for you. You realize there aren't many other places this ship can pull in?"

"_You have life boats."_

"I need to mark that booster's position."

_"Be my guest. Far be it for me to hamper the space program."_

Robbins ordered a radio tag to be affixed to the booster, then ordered the ship to head to the coast.

The ship had churned along for a brief while, while Robbins checked his gauges, heading and did the basic run-the-boat things with his crew, while the large presence in black stood impassively at the centre of his command deck and waited silently.

"Excuse me," Robbins asked, the curiosity finally getting the better of him. The guy shifted slightly toward him. "How exactly _did_ you end up on that booster?"

There was no trace of mockery in the reply.

_"I grabbed it mid-flight and rode it down. Sorry if I scuffed the paint."_

Right. Rode it down. _Riiight._

_Okay, explain how else he got there. _Every other explanation he could come up with just bordered on the idiotic or psychotic. Not to be discounted, but certainly no less far-fetched than falling from orbit on a shuttle booster!

"Don't see too many black _spacesuits._"

_"Recommend it. Might up recruitment." _A pause._ "Admit it, it's pretty snazzy."_

Robbins shook his head.

"No, really. I'm not gonna find a bomb on the booster or something, am I?"

"_No. Really - if I were going to do something that pointless I'd just have sunk this boat by now. Which I could do. If I felt like it." _A pause._ "Don't think about it too much. You'll just end up with a headache."_

Prophetic. Robbins already had a doozy.

More time passed. Out-of-the-blue:

"_You ever hear of John Crichton? He worked for IASA once."_

"Yeah, I've heard of him. Who hasn't?" Robbins checked another gauge.

_"What have you heard?"_

Robbins eyed the guy for a moment, shrugged to himself internally.

"He tested a new ship, ended up halfway across the universe and then came back." He smiled. "Apparently there are seriously attractive so-called 'alien' women wherever he went." He sniffed. "A lot of people cried 'hoax', but IASA confirmed the ship came from outside Earth's orbit, and the technology he had wasn't made on this planet… so…"

"_What's he doing now?_" A flat voice asked, after a few moments.

"He's the head of some UN research agency that's supposed to be developing technology based on the gizmos he brought back from space."

_"Really? Building warp drive and all that, huh?"_ Heavy skepticism in that voice now.

"That's the rumour."

_"Saving the world, is he? Maybe they'll build statues to him." _Heavy sarcasm. Whoever this guy was, he was no fan of Earth's big hero. _"How far to shore?"_

"Two, three hours. It'll be dark by the time we get there." He told the hijacker, who crossed his arms, gun still prominent. Why he cared about Crichton and whether or not his story even had a bit of truth in it – finding that booster was not easy for anyone not directly involved in the program… things weren't really adding up here…

_"Perfect."_

Robbins just sighed to himself, checked his course, asked a crewman for a couple of aspirin, and decided to think about Gloria for the next little while instead.

* * *

**THE STORM MOVED OFF ACROSS THE OCEAN, SHOWING A RATHER IMPRESSIVE WALL OF ANGRY GREY AS IT WENT.**

The _Vengeance_ had been raised and settled on the island, and the small crescent of sand and rock had been scoured clean by the heavy wind and hard rain. Three people stood on the island and gazed at the huge dark shape mostly submerged just offshore. The dead 'borg that had been on board were currently sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

"What the frell are we gonna do with that thing?" Miriya asked. She'd meant it rhetorically. Just behind her, 1812 watched them intently.

"Destroy it?" Chak'sa asked.

"We _could_ try and pull it out with the ship and loot it." Miriya replied.

"That thing was run by 'borgs exclusively?" Chak'sa wondered, trying to remember her ship idents and crew complements.

"What could it have that would be of any use to us, or Crichton?" Shiv asked. She had several dark bruises and scrapes on her exposed flesh – having refused the auto-doc until the ship was fully functional – and back in charge, as Crichton's Second.

"I could run a directional EMP through the main power grid. That should take out any left alive inside – if there are." Miriya mused. "They'd have databases and weapons – as well as spares – that John would definitely want." She added as incentive, frowning, as she crouched down, picked up a handful of wet sand, idly ground it through her fingers.

"Still… _Scorpius_ sent the frelling thing," she muttered. Shiv looked steadily at her.

"I am curious as to how it knew our _exact_ position – especially if your brilliant stealth systems were supposedly working to spec."

Miriya looked at her with another frown.

"I don't know," she replied with a glare, glancing down at her hands. "_I told him_ that hiding in plasma wasn't the best idea."

"The plasma was irrelevant. That ship came directly at us. It knew _precisely_ where we were." Shiv reiterated.

Miriya matched her gaze.

"Are you accusing me of something?"

Shiv cocked her head slightly, blinked once.

"Not yet."

Chak'sa stepped in, asked,

"You said databases, Miriya – what would they contain we do not already know?"

Miriya damped down her anger, and tried to put her mind back onto the task at hand. One thing at a time.

"Among other things - routing coordinates. I'll bet my share they were recording data all the way through the wormhole." She glared back at Shiv. "Regardless, we have to decide. You saw the scans. This planet is ringed with frelling surveillance satellites." She shook her head. "Paranoid bunch."

"You are certain that this _is_ Crichton's Homeworld?" Chak'sa asked Miriya, remembering the data streams and their own reflected scans off the satellites.

"It fits." Miriya nodded, looking back to the Revenger. "You saw the scans. Almost seven billion Sebaceanoids – all fitting Crichton's morphology. The _temperature_ readings alone should convince you this isn't world Sebaceans would hurry to."

"What if he's dead?" Chak'sa asked what all had thought already, but hadn't wanted to voice.

"Then he's dead, and we do what he asked of us." Miriya shook her head. "We told him we would. We promised it." She paused, as if the idea of keeping a promise was something new. "We promised."

"We are not forgetting that." Shiv said, sounding as close to irritated as she ever came. "I am thinking now of the _other_ Crichton."

"What about him?" Miriya shrugged. "If he's even remotely like 'ours' he probably runs half this planet by now." She smiled to herself. "Or got himself executed for something stupidly foolhardy a long time ago."

"'_Our' _Crichton had something he called his 'contingency', in the event of his death."

Miriya shrugged again.

"I'm assuming he had a good reason for telling you – whatever it was – if you think it's wise – at the moment, it's all we've got." Behind her, Chak'sa nodded slightly.

Shiv thought about it. Crichton had a exigency in place, if something happened to him. It involved sealing the wormhole, certainly. But _first_ it had what he'd called "The Imperative." That involved two parts. One, they went through the wormhole and came to this planet. Second, no matter what it took, they were to find the John Crichton here.

Then they were to _kill him_.

Preferably in a method that made his brain irretrievable.

Then they would "unpack" his "special packages", and what was contained therein none of his crew knew. They would, they were assured, know when they were opened what was to be done with the contents within the wormhole – but _only_ when, if and after John Crichton was dead. It was key-coded to Crichton's DNA – the locks on his packages – specifically _blood_.

A tad ghoulish, perhaps, but foolproof. That way there was no going back.

They'd all watched the ship scans of Crichton being pulled into the wormhole bodily. Only his suit, no ship. He'd not had that much breathable atmosphere left in it. Even if he'd been spat out as they were, he'd be in space, and that was a death sentence.

By all estimations, he _was_ very likely dead.

Somewhere in her chest, Miriya felt an unexpected lurch at that conclusion, but pushed it aside. She looked at Shiv.

_It's a good motto,_ she thought. _First things first. Do what you have to, and deal with the rest when you can. Okay. If I have to._

"I recommend we loot the Revenger." Miriya said grimly. "We'll need everything we can strip from it. Then we blow what's left into tiny pieces. We can worry about other things later."

Shiv nodded.

"Yes. That is as good a place to start as any." A pause, a look at Miriya. "My memory is flawless." Miriya frowned, then ever practical, shrugged.

"And then?" Chak'sa asked. Miriya turned, walked back to the _Vengeance_ to get her tools.

Shiv followed Miriya.

"We follow Crichton's contingency."

The Imperative. Shiv had sworn it.

So be it.

* * *

**IT WAS DARK WHEN THE BOAT PULLED UP TO THE SHORE.**

Crichton stepped off it and waited until it had disappeared into the dark water, before turning and heading inland. They would have doubtless called the cops by now, and given them his approximate location. He used his suit's uplink to scan for local radio and television, pulled in a couple of channels which he watched with little interest until he got an idea of where more-or-less he was, and then found a road and proceeded up that. All the buildings he could see were dark. Off to his right a gas station, closed. To his left, a park. His helmet's night vision allowed him to see a truck parked up in a small copse of trees. This he proceeded toward.

A few moments later, he'd interrupted the furiously-making-out teens and they were hightailing it through the park as fast as they could, to escape the dark creature that had suddenly reared in front of the truck and started shaking it until they leapt from it and tore off.

Crichton silently thanked the guy for leaving the keys in the ignition.

So… he now had transportation. He was armed, had his suit and a decent vehicle. He had time – not much, because he would be reported far and wide very soon, if not already. He called up the HUD overlay, set it on a cycle of scans in different frequencies, from infrared up to ultraviolet, looking for any signals that didn't belong to this planet.

Nothing yet. That would likely change, and soon.

Okay… first things first. He pulled off the helmet, started the truck, momentarily forgetting how to get the thing in motion, then getting it backed out and on the roadway, smiling ironically to himself. He could fly a vehicle as sophisticated as a Vigilante but had trouble with something as basic as a truck.

Now… a plan.

_The hell_. He already had a plan, had always had a plan. It was pretty simple:

He would do what he had to, like always, and take what came, use it if he could, deal with it as best as he was able.

He could not, however, allow anyone to stop him, now that he was here.

It was only a matter of time.

He could feel a countdown begin in his head, a litany of reasons for not doing what he was now planning rolling down and, like always, being ignored. If he'd had the luxury of choice, he _would_ make the sensible ones, but that's not how his life worked.

People could soon be dying and there was nothing he could do about that, either.

He himself would be cold and ruthless and not care, and pull triggers and end lives and suffer for it later, as always, carry it with him on his conscience and try and pretend that it was all for the greater good and wonder at the million other excuses he made to get by in a universe that didn't really care what he did, but made him feel guilty for it regardless. He would do it all and walk away the monster he was, retreat into his darkness until tomorrow came and he'd go and do it all over again – as long as it was necessary, until the universe obliterated him and the farce ended.

In the distance, the glow of a town, the wink of lights.

He looked at those people over there, smiled a bitter smile. Out there, in the dark, or rising for the day, _billions_ of Humans, all going about the endless stupid banalities they thought were so immensely important, the thousand mundane things that meant nothing but were really absurd, pointless and utterly precious. Most would never know how close they might come, that madness waited on the other end of a phenomenon most neither knew or would have cared about if they did.

Death, enslavement, destruction, ruin. All for the fleeting illusion of security and power – the never-ending cycle of brutal vicious nonsense that seemed to power every single civilization, that short-term gratification that seemingly always triumphed over long-term survival - and led precisely nowhere.

The alternative was frighteningly simple in conception, but seemingly so astronomically difficult to attain. He knew what it was, but had long ago resigned himself that he would never have it. It was too prosaic, too mundane, too akin to normal.

He could do this. It was all just a matter of time, like always.

He had _some_ time, not much, but lifetimes could be measured in microts, and if one looked at it that way, he had all the time in the world.

It just wouldn't be easy. He didn't want much of anything, not really – John's cooperation, some calculations, a few measly numbers, a couple of vectors, some speed assessments. Easy for the Wormhole King. He'd go and close the damn thing, and they'd never have to worry ever again. They could bask in brainless domestic dren until they choked on it, got fat and slow and complacent.

He felt better, felt the ice slowly forming comfortably around his heart again, that cool empty spot getting its grip, reminding him of what he was, and where he stood.

On a hundred other worlds, a hundred other names… he laughed softly, but there was no humor in it… _he_ was a rapidly-growing legend.

Crichton. Just one more name among hundreds. He'd never intended it of course, neither to be famous nor infamous. For some, he was a villain - ruthless, cold-blooded and implacable. For others a hero - a savior, a rebel, an interstellar Robin Hood.

_John Crichton._

Not his name. Like Haxer, he was a man who fit whatever they chose to call him. He was all those things and none of them - and for all of that, he himself was unsure of just who and what he was – not even coming here would settle the question. It was easy to be a villain to those you defied; you didn't need to do anything but oppose them - and being a hero was effortless – it was easy to risk your life when you cared not a whit whether you lived or died.

He didn't want to be here. John Crichton _was_ here. He had his life and his purpose and his safety and his family and the woman he loved who loved him. Everything he had always wanted.

_The one they'd left behind …so what?_ Being here had not been his choice. He would anticipate nothing, expect nothing. Now that he was here, he would do what had to be done and accept it, return to space and his darkness and his empty life.

He had long since stopped resenting John his good fortune. He wanted nothing here, and nothing here moved him. He was merely cleaning up, doing what John had refused to do in his scamper for safety.

Of course, by the end of it all, Johnny would very likely be a very unhappy boy, even with all his wormhole knowledge and his happy frelling life.

Crichton had his plans for all of it, and John would just have to learn to live with disappointment. He hoped Johnny was smart enough to cooperate - because he really didn't _want_ to kill him, not really, not if it could be avoided, after all, what did he care for this dren - but, _if_ it came down to it, _if_ he had to…

…he would.

* * *

**"HAVE YOU CALLED CRICHTON?"**

"He says he's too busy. He says to send Officer Sun." The technician gave a small shrug.

Jocasta Akanke frowned.

"_Jack_ Crichton initiated the call – against protocol," she muttered. "Still we _have_ to follow up on it." She looked back at the monitors upon which her various liaisons waited.

"_He's certain it's the people Sun and Crichton described as their former shipmates?"_

"It fits," she told Williams. "The ship is identical to this 'Leviathan' they described. Apparently that was enough for Jack Crichton, at any rate."

"_Yes… Jack._" Williams smirked. "_Like father, like son. I am getting a just a tad tired of the Crichtons end-running us, Director. I think it's past time they were reminded just who is _actually_ running this show. _Before_ they decide to release this to the media."_

Akanke could see heads nodding in agreement, some faces frowning, hers included.

"We're making remarkable progress, General."

"_Exactly. The simple fact is, Jocasta, there has always been a limit on how far they were going to be allowed to go – whether they realized it or not. Latitude until they've produced. Now they're going too far."_

He smiled a self-satisfied smile.

"_As of one hour ago, I'm invoking the Icarus Controls. We're clipping their wings – as of now. Inform your departments"_ – this to the others – _"and initiate immediate departmental supervision of all current work – that includes at Serendipity."_

_They are not going to like _that_, _Akanke thought, but only nodded.

"_Technology development we can't control, and now aliens in orbit. This is too much. Crichton is no longer in charge of this."_

His smile widened.

"_I'm officially activating full first phase and cautionary Second Phase Crichton Protocols as well."_ He turned a steely gaze on Akanke. _"You know what to do."_

Akanke nodded again, and left the room.

_Yes, I know what to do, and thanks ever so – do your bidding and watch a very huge pile of shit hit a very large fan. _Akanke glanced back at room she'd just left. She understood what was going on – what might happen, what _could_ happen. Williams and those like him saw only the short-term gain and "superiority" – whatever the hell that was supposed to mean – and despite claims to the contrary, rarely saw the large picture.

Well… that _was_ Akanke's particular aptitude, and why, when all was said and done, things would not go as Williams might have wished. Technically, he outranked her, but Akanke wasn't military anything. A small smile crossed her full lips. Crichton was no longer in charge? All right, fine and dandy.

Williams would soon discover that _he_ wasn't, either.

* * *

**AT ALMOST** that same moment, the Peacekeeper Revenger that had dragged the _Vengeance_ to this planet was flinging it's component atoms over the Pacific Ocean, the _Vengeance's_ hold full of everything of value that could be found on it, Shiv comfortably resting in her quarters, treated expertly by the ship's auto-doc, sleeping her restorative sleep and the _Vengeance_ itself was rising effortlessly into the air.

Moments later, she was in orbit, preparing to search the world below for her missing Commander.

* * *

**CRICHTON WAS PONDERING** whether to attempt to approach a town or go deeper into the countryside, waiting for a light to change, when a state trooper pulled up beside him. Crichton didn't even glance at the guy, but knew almost instantly that the cop recognized the truck – no doubt already reported as stolen. Crichton didn't hesitate. Two quick pulse blasts had blown out a front tire and punched a neat hole into the cruiser's engine, and Crichton and truck were beating a hasty getaway.

_Frell._ So much for quiet reconnaissance. Crichton cursed, floored the truck, and decided, hitting the locator beacon built into his suit. It was a long shot, but considering he'd just jumped from orbit, hijacked a boat, shot a cop car and was now speeding down a dark highway in an attempt to outrun inevitable pursuit, the beacon was as likely as anything else today.

In the distance, far ahead, he could see red and blues winking and cursed again. He didn't want to have to kill cops. He didn't come to start a fight, but there was _no way_ in Hezmana he was going to court or to jail or any of the other pointless legal yotz that passed for law on this planet.

In the rearview mirror, more red and blues flashing furiously.

Right.

A fight it was then.

* * *

**HIGH OVER THE POLE,** hiding in the planet's magnetic field, the crew of the _Vengeance_ watched the two Leviathans enter orbit, then quickly back off toward the moon.

"They followed us?" Miriya growled. "How the frell…?"

"I don't recall them even in our area," Chak'sa corrected her. "They must have arrived during the battle." She thought a moment, shook her head. "Most odd."

"Well, they're _here_." Miriya frowned, then shrugged. "Frell it - not our problem. Let's keep trying to find John." She looked pointedly at Shiv as she entered when she said it. "Of course, being _out_ of all this magnetic interference would help in our search…"

"We may assume that they will do the same thing," Shiv said, sitting down in Crichton's usual seat. She looked much better, save for a large dark bruise on her jaw, something which Miriya found bemusedly irritating.

"Yeah, but for which one?"

"They did not seem particularly fond of the Crichton that came here initially." Chak'sa observed.

"Maybe not," Miriya tried to coax a few more metras from the scan array. "But he _was_ there the longest – that has to count for something."

"'Our' Crichton did much more for them." Chak'sa said, but her mind was on what Haxer would have said at this point, wondering where he was, and if he was all right. He really didn't do so well without her somewhere near. She suppressed a sigh.

"Should we contact them?" She asked. "They could help."

"They're not exactly fond of _us_, either," Miriya reminded him. She pondered the monitor with the now-lunar-orbiting Leviathans floating on it. _Would John contact them? _She weighed all her options, weighed the strategic and tactical advantages and disadvantages. Sighing a sigh neither of them heard, she said, "Shiv – John _would_ contact them."

Shiv shook her head.

"No, he would not." Miriya closed her mouth. "Go to full stealth." She frowned. "We, however, _will_ ask for their help. They know Crichton better than we."

Moments later, they were slipping out of the magnetic interference and heading to the moon. On a tight-beam channel, she called them.

"_Shiv?"_ D'Argo answered. _"Did you find John?"_ He looked concerned on the portal.

"No. We have had no contact." She told him. "Have you anything?"

D'Argo shook his head. He was debating telling them about the call from Earth – and the caller. He still hardly believed it himself.

"So - what do you think of Earth?" Miriya asked him. Shiv glanced at her.

"_It looks wet. Nothing at all?" _He frowned at her._ "You built that thing, Miriya. Your sensors are more sophisticated than Moya's. Are you sure?"_

Miriya shook her head.

_You aren't the only ones who care, D'Argo. _She thought, almost resenting his tone, which faintly surprised her. She was starting to resent a lot of things, she was noticing.

"Nothing. If he's on Earth, I can't imagine how he'd have done it."

"_He'd find a way – or do something crazy,"_ Chiana said with a smile and absolute confidence. Miriya smiled a quirked smile – she wouldn't put it past him, either.

Chak'sa added. "His suit's beacon is fastlinked with this ship, but so far we have detected nothing."

"_If_ he's down there, the Humans might have him – we have no idea how they'll treat him." Chak'sa speculated. "Two Crichtons might not go over so well."

"_Yeah_ - " Chiana concurred. "_What if the Crichton already here tries to have him executed or something_?"

"_Chiana_, _the idea - _" D'Argo growled with a huff. "_We are still talking about Crichton here_."

"_It's been three cycles. People change_."

"_Not Crichton and not that radically_." He glared at her until she sat back down. "_He's told us any number of times how paranoid his people are_."

"_We _have the stealth," Miriya said, looking back at Shiv. "We even have a Deception Shroud. We can go down there."

D'Argo decided.

"_If they haven't found 'our' Crichton yet, we could prove a decent distraction. We've been contacted by a space agency down there. They're acting like they've been expecting us_. _They even used Moya's name. Uh… John's father called us. I can't explain it._"

"Then maybe you should answer back," Miriya said. Shiv looked at her and Miriya shrugged. "If they've been waiting for you." It sounded vaguely accusatory.

"_It's likely that the other Crichton informed them that if we ever appeared – we were friendlies. At least, I hope that's why_. _His father _was_ an important space traveler_." D'Argo replied, not liking the tone. "_That would make the most sense_."

"Indeed it would," Shiv stated, staring at Miriya until she backed off. "Miriya has a point, however. Provided you keep our presence to yourselves, if you feel it prudent to reply to the Humans, you are certainly free to do so – and we will use it as a cover for our own purposes."

"Well, you would anyway, I think." D'Argo half-smiled at her. He admired her loyalty to Crichton, but wondered if it weren't a little foolhardy – then stopped himself, thinking on the last few cycles and a few of things he'd done himself to help his friend.

"Precisely." Shiv told her crew to ready the ship for a stealth run. "Enjoy your visit."

D'Argo nodded, and hoped beyond hope that those weren't, as John might have put it, "famous last words".

* * *

**IN FULL STEALTH, THE _VENGEANCE _METICULOUSLY SCANNED THE WORLD BELOW.**

Chak'sa had been idly watching a scanner when she had been certain she'd caught a blip of an emergency beacon from a hardsuit – which meant Crichton. The others had been skeptical. She stuck to it, showed them the brief telemetry.

"Possible," Miriya said, started working furiously at a scan console. "We had a trick at Ogg'M'nendi for deep-scanning Zenetan storage asteroids. Instead of scanning for something specific, we'd scan for something _associated_ with it." A few moments and she was looking up and smiling in triumph. "Well, well - hello, Peacekeeper-grade hardsuit fusion batteries." She fed the coordinates to the Navicomp, informed D'Argo on Moya. The Moyans were readying themselves to meet the shuttle that had just recently been sent up – and was still in orbit. It would send astronauts over and official first contact would occur.

"He's moving at a rather decent pace."

"In a vehicle." She pointed to the scanner, and Shiv looked over. It showed him moving quite rapidly. "Must be." Miriya frowned, refined her scan. "He's being pursued," she speculated after a few moments. "I'll bet you it's law enforcement."

"That would be in character." Shiv replied dryly. "We shall simply go and retrieve him, in that case." Shiv said calmly. As she said it, he stopped.

D'Argo spoke up.

"_I can't see John wanting you to wholesale kill other Humans just to get to him, _especially _law enforcement. Not a good first impression_. _Personally,_ _I would prefer that if you could retrieve John to please do it with a bare minimum of casualties."_

"I will retrieve him in any manner I see fit, Ka'D'Argo." Shiv told him. "In any manner necessary." She went back to her controls. "I see no reason to treat this planet differently than any other."

"_You won't help anyone if you go around slaughtering law enforcement."_

Shiv fixed him with a cold gaze.

"You underestimate me."

D'Argo opened his mouth, but Miriya interrupted.

"Go do your meet-and-greet and all the rest of that yotz. We'll deal with our Crichton and you can deal with yours."

"_They're both… nevermind_." D'Argo sighed_. "All I meant was…"_

"D'Argo," Miriya said, somewhat exasperated. "We _do_ know what we're doing. We _are_ professionals." _Unlike you lot_, she added, unspoken.

"_All right. I'm going to trust you. Good luck_." He signed off. Moya banked away, down toward the planet. Talyn would follow later. For the time being, he was staying in orbit of Earth's moon. First, they needed to gauge reactions down below.

"Very well…" Chak'sa asked the obvious. "How do we retrieve Crichton without killing anyone?"

Blank faces came back at her, and she sighed.

"Wait, wait…" Miriya said, mind racing. "We have four anesthephine gas canisters Crichton picked up at the Lair. It's a Sebacean _sleep agent_. Physiologies _are_ similar, aren't they?"

"We shall see." Shiv locked the ship into full stealth and they were in atmosphere when Miriya said, rising, "I can rig a canister to one of the pressure release systems to vent it."

"Do so."

Miriya grabbed 1812 and dashed aft.

"You memory is flawless, you said?" Chak'sa asked, not turning around. Shiv smiled slightly, unseen by the gladiator.

"It is impeccable."

The _Vengeance_ banked sharply over the plains states and headed straight for the suit beacon signal. Thanks to the Luxan Deception Shroud, no one on the Earth below saw a thing, although the enormous sonic boom would puzzle locals for quite some time.

* * *

**CRICHTON WAS BACK IN HIS FULL SUIT, GUNS OUT.**

He'd heard the faint chiming ping that denoted that his suit had reestablished contact – if faint – with its mothership. Good. That was very good. An upside, finally.

The current downside was that his purloined truck was currently on its side in a ditch – the police having used the P.I.T maneuver on it, and he was crouched behind it, five police cruisers on the road, the night filled with blue and red light flashing furiously. A subsonic rumble had the ground and air vibrating, but he was a little too busy to ponder it, as the occasional bullet kicked up dirt, a cop shouting angrily for him to surrender.

Not frelling likely.

He'd popped off a shot in an attempt to get them to back off, but that hadn't worked. It had simply elicited heavy return fire and a few shotgun blasts.

He knew his suit was designed to deflect pulse fire. _Ballistic_ fire he wasn't too sure. He couldn't stay here all night, and he didn't really want to kill cops. He'd have to chance it.

_Damn it all to hell._

He rose up, pistols out, tracking for targets, and it took him a moment to notice that the cops weren't firing any longer.

The lights flashed, the wind blew, that deep quiet rumble rumbled, and the cops were face down on the asphalt.

Crichton looked up just as a bright light speared down, illuminating the area and the underbelly of a _very_ welcome sight.

When his crew unerringly made their way to him, he was leaning comfortably on the side of the truck, helmet off, with a small smile.

As the others checked over the unconscious Humans, Miriya sidled up to the flipped truck, put hands on hips and asked, with a saucy smile,

"Hey, handsome – need a ride?"

He shook his head, crossed to her, the smile only slightly wider.

"Took you long enough."


	3. Chapter 3

**THEY WERE TREATED LIKE CELEBRITIES.**

Naturally. Every television, every show, every news agency on Earth – that's all they talked about, constantly. The safehouse which they were provided was completely and constantly under siege by cameras. The crew of Moya, Moya and Pilot themselves – the biggest event in Human history: first contact with extraterrestrials, even though it wasn't the first, not really.

Crais and Talyn ignored most of it, intent on watching the wormhole. They did watch the television interview with Aeryn, however. She came forward and told the truth and another media frenzy erupted. How many more aliens _were_ there? For a brief space, the conspiracy-mongers had the lion's share of the coverage, which faded off relatively quickly. Real aliens were far more interesting than mentally-troubled attention seekers.

Crichton had been peeled from his suit and had the auto-doc checking him over before the _Vengeance_ had returned to orbit. He had dozens of minute hairline impact fractures, nothing that the auto-doc could really fix. He surmised those had probably come from his ride through the wormhole. He'd wondered where that omnipresent ache had been coming from. It could also dispense some effective pain relief, but Crichton didn't like the kind that slowed him or impaired his faculties. Pain was something to which he was becoming familiar.

He ordered them to the moon, put them in the same orbit as Talyn.

On the forward view screen, he watched the news from Earth, watched the dren swell and the world spasm as aliens revealed themselves and the media took over, turning the entire thing into a surreally mindless circus.

Throughout the affair, he said nothing, merely watched with his crew, listening to Miriya laugh and Shiv and Chak'sa express their incredulity.

"Do we have a plan?" Miriya inquired as some panel of pundits droned and quibbled on the monitor above her station.

"_I _have a plan." Crichton told her. "You have a part in that plan. So, in one sense, yes, 'we' have a plan."

"Can 'we' know what it is?"

"Later. I need this ship rigged for combat, and you girls can get to work on that any time." He paused, glanced at the noise coming from the monitors. "…unless you find this dren more important."

Miriya sent him a small smile, and Shiv and Chak'sa both nodded, and all rose, filed out.

Shiv, perhaps surprisingly, requested that some Human music be allowed to be heard throughout the ship. Crichton had contemplated her for a few moments and then granted permission to scan for whatever "tickled her fancy". Shiv decided as broad a range as possible would be ideal and had the computer find a number of channels and then switch randomly between them. For the first time in its operational lifetime, the _Vengeance_ rang with the sounds of rock'n'roll, jazz, blues and classical music.

Two arns later, his ship quiet again, Crichton sat slumped in his pilot's chair, wiped engine lubricant from his hands and looked back at the blue-white orb on the big monitor before him and wished that he was happy to have been here, finally, at last.

He felt like the man trapped in a distant land and then, when finally returning home, discovering that someone else had long since claimed his home and identity, and those he had thought he'd known preferred the imposter.

He was alone on Command, frelling sore, stiff and pissed off.

_It's not home. It's just another goddamned rock_, he told himself, with the professional spacer's disdain for planets. Planets were where you re-supplied, played, made money or, if you had to – went to ground, but you certainly didn't _live_ on one – and if you did, never for long. Planets meant you were confined to one place – _stuck_.

Frell that.

"You've got that face on. You alright?" Miriya asked him. She came up, rested her hip against the console, looked down at him. He looked up into her violet eyes and oval face, surrounded by thick-soft gold-red hair. The reflected moonlight made those features softer than they were normally, just accentuated her attractiveness. He felt a passing affection, he realized, but nothing else. He knew her too well. He spent all of five seconds wondering if it disturbed him, decided it didn't.

All in good time. He felt strangely calm.

He was going to die here, something told him, with an assured certainty. He'd come close, again, but he knew it was very possible. The punchline to the tragicomedy of his existence would be written _here_. He felt a strange giddy anticipation deep within himself, a coiled, furiously-spinning something in him _wanting_ it - and badly, eager to have it come and be over with, finished at last.

Well, maybe, but he remembered his motto.

"Fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, we _are_ over…"

"Just another rock." He cut her off. "Nothing more." She saw the muscle in his jaw bunch, settle down.

Miriya sighed, looked over the landscapes being scanned on the monitor. It reminded her of Verakalos, her Homeworld. Almost. Too much water, the sun was yellow, far too hot in some places, but it was nice. Well, okay; it was passable, if a tad primitive. It had potential though.

"Were we wrong to let Moya contact Earth?" She asked him.

"No. It was a good distraction. Good instincts." He didn't care. Let them have it. _You couldn't have stopped them anyway_, he thought to himself, briefly amused. "Nice job getting me out, too."

"Any time. One question, however… why _do_ you have four canisters of anesthephine gas?"

Crichton smiled a crooked smile at her.

"Contrary to how it might look on occasion, I don't actually _like_ killing people."

She smiled, leaned over him. Made sense.

"So… are you looking for anything _specifically_?" Miriya asked.

"Johnny's Hetch-drives."

_Hetch-drives? Why Hetch-drives?_

"Hetch-drives?" She glanced at the monitor. "What difference does it make if he has one – or a dozen? Do you really care?"

"Nope."

"Then why…?"

"Are you never curious, Miriya? He's had almost three cycles. How many did the boy manage to make in that time, huh? How good is he?"

Miriya _pfft'ed._

"Frell – in three cycles, I could have built a hundred." She eyed his scan. "So how many _does_ he have?"

He jabbed his thumb at the tactical console behind him.

"According to that, four. One from Furlow's copy of _Farscape_, most likely, but that's in pieces. The scan is only reporting the core, non-functional. It's in a place called Florida, most likely at IASA. The other three are probably prototypes. He's had no doubt much government support – to work on them."

"Industrious, isn't he?" She smirked at the screen.

"No doubt he has some great noble plan for saving the world." He shrugged. John's plans wouldn't mean a thing once he closed the wormhole. He could spin around local space forever and be damned.

1812 squeaked under his feet and Crichton settled back. He had memories of being here, a million cycles ago, with a family, but he mined the remembrances only for anything that would give him tactical use, landmarks to orient himself, strategic advantages, should the need arise.

The rest was of no consequence, and he thanked again the Medican on R'skol who had sold him the emotional suppressant. He had hard decisions coming, he knew, and he didn't need the baggage of another man's attachments clouding his judgment. Father, sister and the rest had joined Sun in the emotional dustbin.

Crichton said nothing, listened to the _Vengeance_ hum around him. Miriya mentioned something absently about Earth resembling her home in a vague way.

_There was definitely no going home again. _The seat beneath him, the ship around him, the stars out there. That was home. It was all he'd ever have even close to "home". All he wanted.

An alarm suddenly sounded, and he was jerked out of his reverie. A quick wave of _something _had swept the _Vengeance._ Crichton looked, hit a few keys, tried to hone in on it.

Gone. But it had definitely been from something that should_ not_ have existed on this planet.

_What the hell… something scanned us…?_

Miriya had been looking over his shoulder, jumped back to her station, was furiously hitting keys.

"What the frell was _that_? My board says it was a kind of _wave-lock_ deepscan." Miriya told him, coming back, reaching over and tapping a few more keys. "It was seriously _strong_, though…"

A wave-lock deepscan was one that comprehensively scanned a ship or object in a quick burst. The return information would then have to be decoded and expanded to be studied. It could give a ship's position away, though, and was meant for a ship on the run. Pirates often used it to see if any ship they passed was worth attacking. He'd used himself on occasion.

"Humans don't have that kind of technology." Violet eyes looked back at him with skepticism.

"Not even with what he brought back?"

"Not even with that." He checked the sensors again. "Crap. Not enough of a trace to determine what it was. Quick and really deep."

"That would imply some seriously powerful scanners."

"Without a trace, there's nothing we can do about it." He frowned. That was all he needed.

Miriya leaned over again, hit a few more keys. There would be no tracking it. It would have to be a mystery for another time. She reached across his back to do it.

She smelled very nice, he noted absently. Strawberries and roses. A warm summer day.

"Well, whatever it was, I did find a few things when I was compiling that planetary scan for you. Did you see _this_?" She asked him, bring up a radiation trace analysis.

"No, I hadn't. Is that… partanium radiation?" She nodded. Miriya had been leaning on his back, arms over his shoulders, trying to be cute-annoying. She felt very nice there too, he noted again, wondered why and chalked it up to fatigue. The feel of her body on his eased the tension in his muscles and dulled some of the pain. _Sheesh._ He pulled his mind back to the business at hand, and she leaned back.

"It's not strong. Decay rates say it's been ionizing for a while now – a few cycles at least."

Crichton snorted, his body once again aching. Miriya stood back.

"_Farscape_. Well, his copy of_ Farscape_."

"_Farscape_? What on that contained a _partanium_ radiation source? If it's anything like that pod in the cargo bay…"

Crichton leaned back in his seat, rubbed his neck. Miriya absently noted it and just as absently began rubbing his neck for him. He didn't complain. Her fingers were strong and expert.

"They're the same. I have the original, he has Furlow's copy. It was his Dreadnought killer."

"Oh… that Displacement Engine you talked about before?" He nodded. "You'd think it'd have more failsafes." She ran the track back. "Whoa, just a microt – look at this rad-track." She called up dispersion strengths. "That's an odd track. It ends in …a _population_ center." She called up a map. Crichton searched his 12th Grade geography. Arizona, right.

He made a whistle-boom noise. She shook her head, looked back at the track on the monitor.

"Not-so-sturdy construction, then?" She asked the inevitable tech question, eying it.

"No. Flash Gordon-esque flying skills," he said sardonically. A quizzical look, also inevitable, and he reiterated: "He crashed." She traced the line of faint radiation with her finger. Her other hand continued to massage his neck.

"Explains the big spike at the end. Is this one of those things about wormholes I'm not meant to know?" Miriya pondered.

"Miriya – I could hand you detailed blueprints of a Displacement Engine, and with your expertise, you could build one that worked perfectly. I've no doubt about that."

She nodded. Of course she could.

"But – unless you know _precisely_ what it's supposed to do, it wouldn't do you a bit of good."

"Because I'd have to know wormholes." She said, getting it. She stopped massaging him, stepped back.

"Exactly." Crichton smirked. "…and you'd have to know them _intimately_."

"So…it's useless?" Miriya was looking at him closely, he noted. He smiled again.

"No, it's not useless. But it may as well be. As a _delivery system_, it's first rate. As a _weapon_, it's a piece of dren."

"It destroyed a _Dreadnought_." Miriya reminded him. He'd told her the story, at her insistence one night, she curled around him in his quarters.

"No – the _stellar matter destroyed the Dreadnought. Only_ because the Dreadnought didn't know what it was dealing with." Miriya yet looked at him like he was farhbot, and he sighed.

"Miriya – Crichton used an unstable proto-wormhole to fling a chunk of stellar matter at a Dreadnought that _didn't know_ what to expect or could calculate what was coming. Not only did Crichton get lucky, he got _frelling_ lucky. The only reason Crichton blew away those Scarrans was because they were focused on _Talyn. _I told you this already."

He watched Miriya think about it, then saw her slowly believe him. He added a last bit of proof for her.

"If you want, I'll even _give_ you the plans for the damn thing," he told her and enjoyed the look of surprise on her face. "Seriously."

She continued to look at him with disbelief, he sighed over-dramatically, leaned forward and pulled his Harvey-culled plans from his encrypted database and displayed them on the monitor in front of her.

Miriya looked at them and him with incredulity and then he saw comprehension dawn. She looked back at him sharply but his face was guileless.

"He ran, amongst other things - to keep the Displacement Engine away from Scorpius – and he didn't have to." He growled-sighed. "Dumbass."

Miriya was silent for a few moments, looking carefully at the detailed plans before her. He was …_right_, she realized. It _wasn't_ a weapon. The partanium radiation source didn't look like it actually powered _any_thing, simply because there wasn't a single moving part or a circuit pathway that looked to go anywhere or do anything of any practical sense she recognized. There were no inputs or outputs. Despite that, it looked for all the Galaxy like a… she blinked.

_How _did_ this thing work? Really?_ To her professional eye, this 'Displacement Engine' looked like nothing more than a kind of …_data storage module_.

What the _frell_? What kind of information did it process? He was right – unless you knew _exactly_ what it meant to do, it _was_ completely useless. Her tech-trained mind could see potential uses for it, but as a viable offensive weapon? Forget it.

Well. That changed things. What did he like to say? Oh yes - it also "figured". She'd wait yet, she decided. Wait and see. She had time. She shrugged, and said,

"No… what would I want with it? Still – that radiation says he had problems with it. Maybe exposure problems."

"I doubt it. I'm sure everything has gone swimmingly for ol' Johnny." That, like everything else for the sumbitch, was inevitable as well. He reached over, returned the scan to its random hop around the planet, now that he'd satisfied Miriya's overly-curious nature. A calculated risk, but he took risks all the time. He'd learned to _layer_ his plans.

He knew where the other Hetch-drives were. One in Nevada – "Area 51", doubtless, one in Australia, one in northern Alaska. One never knew when that information might come in handy. Miriya muttered something about fixing the comm system and wandered away. She needed to think, she decided.

After another half-arn, he stopped the computer scan on the base in Australia where it had scanned the first Hetch-drive, left it there.

He felt like he'd been racked for the last weeken.

"You look no worse for experience." Shiv observed, as she entered Command. "Having considered your rather unorthodox landing technique."

"_Look_, yeah. _Feel_, that's something else."

She handed over a list on a pad.

"Inventory. Damage and repair estimates."

It was also the stuff they'd looted from the Revenger. He looked it over, approved. Plenty of spare parts, components, ammo, extra weapons. All good.

He nodded to himself. _Yeah, the Revenger._ The Revenger team had just been a distraction, a speed-bump, something to slow them up. It hadn't worked. Not the way Scorpy had planned. Crashing into the Pacific had finished them off – all the save the one that had attacked her on Earth.

The real question now was just how the _Revenger_ knew precisely where they'd been when it attacked. Shiv sat next to him, her fire-eyes regarding him. They were shadowed.

"Logically, it could only have been…" she began.

"I know," he interrupted. "That was anticipated."

She paused, looked at him. Nodded once.

_He looks very tired._ She thought to herself.

"So – that is, was, your… Crichton's Homeworld." Shiv queried diplomatically, gesturing toward the monitor, trying to change tack, if only to pull his mind down the track it would invariably travel.

"The Big Blue Marble." He muttered, closing his eye at the headache that ate at the corners of his patience. "Mother Earth, Gaia, Spaceship Earth, the Pale Blue Dot."

"Interesting." Shiv looked it over, and he looked over at her. She still had a large bruise on her jaw, the darkness of it marring her usually flawless skin. None of them had walked away from their wormhole trip unscathed. For all their ferociousness in a fight, he appreciated their restraint on the road – it made the future slightly less contentious. Dead cops just wouldn't have helped at all.

"You think so?" He asked, eliciting a look from her. Things would be calm, such as that was, for a while yet. He still had some time. Not much.

"You would know it better than I."

"Trust me – it's all nothing but more frelling trouble."

Shiv nodded, bent to her controls, ran a few tactical scans, meaning to come up to speed. She wouldn't find anything in orbit except a few thousand satellites – most inoperative junk - and one half-built station. Miriya sauntered back into Command, looked out at the planet before them.

"All engineering and comm subsystems are back online. You can cross that off your list, Shiv."

Miriya plunked herself down in the ops chair, smirked.

"The engineering computer was being picky, but it works now." Directing that at Chak'sa over the comm – her purview. The Scarran acknowledged.

Crichton said nothing. He was looking out of the portal, at the moon rolling beneath them.

_Now or later?_ He wondered, glancing back at Miriya, who sat with a smile, taping her fingers on her board. _Later. Maybe. I think things have changed. Or are at least beginning to change. We'll see._

"Good. I need you to refine our sensors. Can you do that?"

"In my sleep. Refine in what sense?"

He paused, decided it didn't matter.

"I need higher resolutions."

Miriya nodded as he said it.

"With D'Argo and the others down there, you don't need them." He just stared at her. "They'll be out in the open. Granted, the other Crichton hasn't shown yet – Sun has, but…"

"Did I say I gave a damn about any of that?" he said, rising. "What put that idea in your head?"

Miriya blinked, floundered a moment.

"Well, I just thought you'd be going back down there…"

"Maybe I have to – I probably will, and you'll go with me. So what?"

Miriya paused a moment, then asked,

"Then why the higher scanner resolutions?"

"I _want_ higher resolutions."

"They're high now, John… I don't see any reason to…"

"Just do what you're told, Miriya." He said, low and hard, moving past her, climbing out of the Command pit. She blinked at the coldness of it.

In his cabin, Crichton found a headache tablet, gulped it, sat heavily on his bed. He was sore but serviceable. He'd survive. Miriya hadn't been wrong, _per se_ - he'd find John and put an end to this dumbshow once and for all, if it became necessary.

For now, he had other things that needed doing.

At Miriya's request, and a special interest evinced by Chak'sa, Crichton allowed radio and video transmissions back into the ship.

He spent _his_ time with his notebooks, with the _Vengeance's_ computer, his special Haxer-protected section, trying to work out precisely the vectors he needed to close the wormhole, hoping to hell he could do it alone. With luck, he could avoid having to deal with John at all… Some of the timing looked to be in the milli-microt, and he was good, but he was doubting he was _that_ good. It was the best solution, no one would die, all tied up nice and neat.

If, if, if….

Eventually, he succumbed to the monitors again. He watched his friends charm the media and the world, and reunite with Aeryn Sun, and felt more alone in the universe than he ever had. He appreciated that they could seemingly forgive so readily. He was surprisingly glad they had.

Okay, so he wasn't Crichton. He didn't give a crap about scaring the masses below. He decided, against his better judgment, to go back down. This time, however, he would go down in complete control of the situation.

He smiled, briefly. Fate kept trying to kill him off, and he kept surviving. Earth beckoned, but he resisted.

It was just another planet full of strangers.

"Is this common?" She asked him, standing behind him as they watched the frenzy. A biography of John came on and Shiv watched with interest, until she heard the Crichton by her say, softly,

"Common enough." A sigh. "I can't do it."

"You cannot?" She didn't ask for specifics. She knew he meant the wormhole, or something to do with it.

"I don't have the reflexes for it." He sighed. "It has to be _precise_, exact, or it won't work. I could trap us here, or lock the damn thing _open, _leave it like a frelling off-ramp for anyone who happened along."

Shiv didn't hesitate, she didn't even ask what he'd need them for specifically, but she said it anyway.

"I have the reflexes."

"I know you do. But you don't have the knowledge – and it's not something I can coach you through." He sent her a crooked smile.

"Thank you, though." She nodded.

Crichton stood.

"What _can_ be done?" Shiv asked in her usual tone. Shiv saw him go from melancholy to business, the one blue eye going cold and the mind behind it calculating. Many people underestimated his intelligence, she knew.

Behind him on the screen, the program had segued into an old interview with John. Crichton turned slightly to indicate it.

"I need someone with complete access to wormhole theory – and alternatives." She raised an eyebrow, and he nodded, turning and leaving the Command, with Shiv behind him. He entered into the _Vengeance's_ common area, where the two others of his little crew were gathered watching the going's on far below.

"Say," he began, and two expectant faces turned toward him. "Who's up for fame and fortune?"

Then he started to laugh, and it was the pure laugh of a pirate king.


	4. Chapter 4

_Sorry – I know I put it up and then took it down, but I wanted y'all to know there was something coming. But after some further perusal, I decided it need a smidge …more, a slight change in tone, some small expansions here and there. Quite frankly, I didn't like it as uploaded. I think it's better now, and ask you to read it again. Thanks for indulging me._

* * *

**THEY STEPPED ONTO MOYA ALL EYES AND WONDER.**

Dignitaries, representatives of American and Allied governments, had been picked up by an automated transport pod – after the astronauts in the shuttle had been the official first contact - and brought to the Leviathan, all at the request of John and Aeryn and three gabillion government officials. John recommended a diverse group, chosen from representatives of the UN, to which D'Argo had agreed. They crammed as many as they could onto Moya's pod, with select journalists and three camera crews.

It was all _very_ historic, and it would be covered from every possible angle.

"Look at Moya," Aeryn had breathed as they'd approached. Aeryn had been fidgety, almost like a child unable to wait for the ride to Disneyland, the desire to get back into space almost palpable in her. Moya was a shiny gold/silvery colour, obviously armoured from the last time they'd seen her. Overlapping and elegant plates flared from her 'nose', curved over her back, coiling around her 'tails'. As they did a once-round circuit of her – to show the dignitaries both her size and shape – they could see that her propulsers had also been altered. John found himself looking for gun-ports, shook his head. She had definitely been upgraded a tad. It didn't stop on the outside, either. It looked expensive as hell, and very professionally done. He remembered they'd a ton of cash from the Shadow Depository heist – nice to see they'd put it to decent use.

Aeryn and John had stepped out first, to be greeted by thirty large - and a bit larger than they remembered - obviously-armed DRD's. _Heavily_ armed DRD's.

D'Argo and Chiana stood close to one another, both armed, Chiana blatantly so. A relaxed and placid-faced Interion waited behind them. No one else was in evidence.

Introductions were made, but John was watching Aeryn. The trip to Moya, that had been telling, but no one else but him would have noticed the change in her behaviour. He wasn't even sure if she'd noticed it herself.

Her bearing changed immediately stepping onboard the long-missed Leviathan. It went from the military stances she'd adopted – or fallen back into – from her time away from him, to a more relaxed walk, a more-at-ease feeling from her, as if she'd stepped through the doorway of her own home, long lived-in and utterly comfortable.

The Moyans had been wary, stand-offish, Chiana barely speaking past perfunctory cold sentences forced from her by D'Argo and D'Argo guarded in his greetings. The new guy, Koiban, he was affable and personable and John had liked him almost immediately. No Jool, however. Rygel, typically, had no time for them, deep in…something; "plans for insurrection", D'Argo muttered when asked. Pilot's greeting had been short and businesslike, also cold and obligatory. Koiban offered to lead the humans on a tour of Moya, promptly accepted, and led the way. John knew that it had been planned that way.

Conspicuous by his absence, the Other was not spoken of – not even in passing. Even a roundabout, "So… this everyone?" from John had just received a curt nod from D'Argo and the beginning of the tour. John tried to pull D'Argo aside for a talk, but D'Argo said nothing past "Things were different", and "He had a lot to do", so John should probably join the tour. D'Argo stalked away, heading back to Command.

In a way, he was relieved. He'd certainly not looked forward to having to deal with the copy they'd left behind. _Dead? Gone?_ Either worked for him. He wasn't worried that anyone could get the duplicate wormhole knowledge in the Other's head. He'd been assured it was uncrackable.

John had known that they weren't going to be happy with his and Aeryn's rather abrupt leaving. He knew they'd forgive him when they found out the real reason, but it was kind of hard to tell them when he couldn't get them to listen to him for more than thirty seconds at a time.

Aeryn tried Chiana, and Chiana answered with a curt, "what do you care?" and stomped off after D'Argo. John shook his head.

"I can't really blame them," Aeryn murmured when he drew up to her.

"We didn't have much of a choice at the time, Aeryn. You know that."

She shook her head, started walking after the awestruck group ahead.

"It'll just sound convenient," she sighed. "No matter how true it is."

He shrugged. "The truth's the truth."

At a corridor end, the group turned one way, and Aeryn turned another.

"Where are you going?" John asked. Aeryn blinked. No. He wouldn't remember his way around. John had pretty much put everything "out here" away by now.

"To see Pilot," she told him simply, and didn't wait to see if he'd follow or not.

He didn't.

* * *

**"OFFICER SUN** – the tour does _not_ come through my Den." That great head was down, scanning Moya's controls. "It is off-limits to anyone not a member of Moya's crew – or without express permission from the Captain." It was said cursorily, as he had spoken to the Humans over the comm, formally, with no warmth.

That slowed her enthusiasm somewhat, but didn't stop it. The Den had changed, in line with the modifications. Pilot's console was surrounded by heavier stanchions, armor. She could see the flanges of what looked like blast doors above his head.

_How,_ she wondered_, did they get all of this done? _It was practical and… smart, and just what had been needed.

"I wanted to see you – without everyone else around." She tried a smile. "The last time I checked, I was _still_ a member of this crew."

Pilot looked at her with his doe eyes, but his voice was not welcoming.

"As of the last two and two-quarter cycles, my crew manifest lists only D'Argo, Chiana, Rygel, and Evigan."

He looked back down, did not see the look of pain that crossed her face. He knew it was there, however, and was glad he'd not seen it. He also wondered if she'd note that he'd left Crichton's name off that list as well.

_It doesn't matter. I'm just a servitor_, he told himself. _She did not _have_ to say goodbye to me or Moya. _He'd said that to himself those cycles ago – and it had hurt then, and it hurt now. In some ways, it hurt more with her in the room.

"Pilot, please. I can explain…"

"You do not have to explain anything to _me_, Officer Sun." He cut her off. "I understand _my_ place in the universe."

"You _deserve_ an explanation." She said, not to be deterred. "We left because we _had to_ – because the wormhole aliens would have killed us _and_ Moya _and_ Talyn to make sure John's wormhole knowledge was safe."

Pilot looked back at her.

"I know it sounds like an excuse. It sounds convenient. But it's true. He gave John a choice: run or die. All of us. That was all. We chose your lives."

"I see. Were you seized by another wormhole?"

Aeryn nodded.

"Yes. We were in orbit of Dambada, and the next thing I knew we were in a wormhole – I think. John said that we were. And there was this alien with black eyes…"

"A wormhole alien?" That great head tilted at her, and his eyes were inquisitive. She nodded.

"I won't lie to you, Pilot. We _were_ going to use the wormhole and go to Earth. We were excited, I guess we weren't really thinking. I was so glad that we'd done it - that we'd survived. I told John that we should go."

She frowned, as Pilot nodded. He could understand how strong some desires could be.

"The alien and John talked for a long time. I was in his module and really didn't hear a lot of it. The alien demanded we go somewhere safe, because of all the unlocked data in John's head and to close the wormhole. It was that or he would destroy anyone and anything John had come into contact with – to protect the knowledge."

"But the wormhole is still open."

"Unfortunately, John's planet really doesn't have the technology. Just barely. We've been trying to create it on Earth for that purpose."

"Well, then," Pilot began. "Crichton will certainly be glad to hear…"

Aeryn never heard about _which_ Crichton Pilot meant as abruptly the lights in the Den flickered, died, and Moya groaned. Pilot immediately bent to his controls. After a few moments, the light returned.

"Most unusual," he said, after a moment.

"Pilot – what was it?"

"One moment…" He looked up, blinked. "Moya has just been scanned. It was so strong that she felt it as a physical thing. _Most_ unusual." He checked again. "Internal sensors and DRDs report that _everything_ in and on Moya has been scanned. It was the most thorough scan we have ever seen."

Aeryn was trying to look at his board.

"What could do that?" She looked concerned for a moment, then dismissed her thought. "Can you tell where it came from?"

"No. That is the most perplexing part. It seemed to come from all around us."

"_Pilot."_ Aeryn was startled to hear Crais, looked at Pilot. He simply blinked again at her, said, "Yes?"

_"We have just been scanned by an intense deep wave of some kind. Talyn is unhurt, but concerned."_

"We have also been scanned, Crais, but Moya cannot pinpoint its origin."

_"Nor can Talyn. It does not match anything Peacekeepers or Scarrans possess. Not at that magnitude. There is nothing in Elack's memories to match it, either."_

There was a pause.

_"Nothing. No resonance, no fade. It simply was and is now… not. Most peculiar."_

"Without being able to determine its source…"

"_Indeed. We shall be wary, however, in case it repeats."_

"As will we."

Aeryn opened her mouth, but Pilot beat her to it.

"Officer Sun is here, Captain. She requests to be allowed to see Talyn." Aeryn smiled at him.

There was another pause, much longer.

_"Talyn states that he has no desire to either meet or speak with Officer Sun at this time."_

Aeryn's face fell, but she didn't contest it. She had, more or less, actually expected it._ "We will resume our watch, Pilot. Please report any further incidences you may encounter."_

"Of course, Captain." Pilot looked up at Aeryn, said, "Talyn has recently undergone extensive neural re-pathing, Officer Sun. It will take some time for his new personality to gel."

Aeryn simply nodded, asked about the procedure, was glad he was better. She knew Pilot was omitting significant details from his story, both about Talyn and Moya, and knew they likely concerned the Other, the one she could not quite bring herself to call "Crichton", but she knew better not to ask, because she knew Pilot wouldn't tell her. No one would talk about the Other.

A 'wandering' stroll through the habitation tiers, and she was in front of Crichton's old quarters, but they were dark and empty, unused for a long time. She stared into the dark chamber for a moment, felt as if something had been lost, but nothing she could put a finger on.

Aeryn found herself eventually back in the hanger, enjoyed a few memories. Rygel as potentate, the Tavloids grabbing him for a reward there never was or could have been in those early days, John's scraping takeoff on his first piloted run of a transport pod, Zhaan's stand against Maldis. She stopped.

She yet missed the serene Delvian and her gentle wisdom.

She noted that the other _Farscape _was gone, as she remembered that the original had been left behind on Moya. She allowed herself to wonder if _he_ still used it, found her mind tacking down dark passages, stopped herself. Without extensive refitting, _Farscape_ would not last long as an interstellar _anything. _Better to simply buy himself a whole new ship._  
_

After some further exploration, she found a weapon consignment and nodded to herself. New holster and pulse pistol went on her hip, and she'd be damned if anyone took _this_ one from her. Extra ammo went into a pocket, and she instantly felt better, felt her stance change, her walk change, the weight right and where it belonged.

Felt like Aeryn Sun, Special Commando. Not some honorary tech, not a designer, not an engineer. She felt like… herself, something she admitted that she had not felt like in a long time.

A stroll out into the larger area of the hanger and the storage bays, and she was elated to see her Prowler tucked in a side bay, tarped and locked down, but still in one piece.

It undoubtedly needed some routine maintenance. She looked it over, checked the security locks, overrode, and opened the cockpit, climbed in without hesitation.

A pre-flight check, as natural as breathing, and she began the start-up sequence, rolled the Prowler out into the bay. Well, well. Someone _had_ done maintenance on it. Not recently, but nothing needed to be done.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw John enter, see the Prowler and smile. She wondered why, shook her head.

_Of course._

The Prowler could be used as a template to speed up his own work, could be used to help her finish the Raptor. She also knew the instant this ship touched down on Earth she'd never see it again.

Well, she'd see about _that_, too.

The desire to fly it – to get out among the stars again, was almost painful. He began walking toward her and she made her decision, rolling the Prowler into position and turning it out. John stopped, frowned.

She didn't care. A few moments, and she was out of Moya and into space, and the happiest she'd been in a long time. She kicked the Prowler up to speed in a burst of pure pleasure and was damn-near to the asteroid belt before she even thought to turn around.

* * *

**HAXER, PERHAPS SURPRISINGLY,** was not one inclined to much deep introspection. Given his past mental state, the jumble it had been, he'd for all that knew himself pretty well, knew his limitations and his skills, and despite appearances, used his manic energy to rather efficient effect.

He wasn't much of a dreamer, either. Whatever Scorpius had done in his head had pretty much erased his capacity to dream, or at least to dream very much.

This time was different.

He found he knew his location – the bridge of a Command Carrier, thick with instrumentality, recognized that it was one of the rare research Carriers exclusive to the Tech Divisions. He looked down at himself, at his grey uniform, the one he usually wore, but this one had insignia on it, the red shoulder of the Tech. Good rank, too, he noted absently. Pretty high up, as far as that went. A diminutive woman with very large eyes nodded at him as she went past, and he found himself walking toward the large forward portal, where numbers and symbols scrolled, jumped and danced in a mathematical ballet he knew well. On the portal writhed something else he'd seen before:

A wormhole.

He stared, rapt at it as it twisted on itself. Deep in its maw, it flashed red and yellow, a sharp snaky green, vomited sickening blues, mottled colours that swapped places and folded on themselves and split and rejoined.

"Yes," he heard a voice beside him say, suddenly felt a presence at his elbow. "This one isn't stable, either."

Haxer turned to his right, saw soft brown hair, cut short in the average Tech style, looked down into large sharp hazel eyes and saw a pert nose, soft lips, smooth skin the colour of creamed coffee, a light smattering of freckles one could only see up close. She came up to his shoulder. He knew he knew who she was… just couldn't come up with a name…

"You called it – again." She told him with a faint smile. "I honestly don't know how you do it."

"Is this a dream?" He asked her. Had a sudden thought. "Or a memory?"

She looked at him with some scepticism.

"_This_ is the Deep Carrier _Roshannan_, and _you_ should be overseeing that data assimilation." She gave him a nudge. "Or do you want to be here for the entire day?"

"What's your name?" He asked her, suspicious. He _knew._ He knew he knew. This had been an important day. Something that had changed his life had happened on _this _day…

"Special Officer Daranderhel – I do _not_ have time for this today." She pointed a slender finger at a bank of machine. "Data assimilation."

"No. That's not your name," he told her, certain. She looked amusedly exasperated.

"No, that's _your_ name. _Ander Daranderhel_ – pain in my eema."

Haxer froze. Time seemed to stop just then, everything freezing on the bridge, surrounded by a halo of soft light.

Ander Daranderhel. His name. His _name_. His _real name_! He glared at the woman who had just named him, her lovely face frozen in that indulgent vexation. She was special. _Had_ been special. _Very special._

Elisaha Mundari. Fell into his head like a stone into a still pond, rippled outward. _That_ was her name. _Elisaha Mundari. She was his…_ she smelled like vosha flowers after a rain. His favourite spot was where her stomach curved into that hollow on her hip bone…

Something fell behind him, something glass or crystalline, shattering with a sound that sounded like a scream, shocking him, spinning him around…

… he jerked awake in his cot to the sound of an alarm.

_"All crew to their battle-stations._" A voice intoned. _"The ship has been deep-scanned by a source unknown. All crew to stations."_

_Deep-scanned? Who in this part of space could do that? Nothing on Crichton's homeworld could do that._

Frell. He'd have to ponder his dream later, he told himself, swinging his legs off his bunk and reaching for his boots.

He knew better than to keep Nerada Lamm waiting.

Haxer straightened his collar, brushed a wrinkle from his uniform, and allowed himself a moment of elation before stepping into the corridor.

_He had a name!_

* * *

**AERYN SUN RETURNED** to Serendipity in a torn state of mind. The arrival of the Moyans had thrown the planet into a tizzy, media was everywhere and the government was no doubt plotting ways to steal or wheedle as much technology out of them as possible. Certainly the idea of another source of it other than John had its appeal.

_The Raptor Project _was her overview. She was to build a craft he could put his engine in. Since the arrival of Moya, and the return of her Prowler – which she'd parked neatly in Serendipity's main hanger - even now her techs were swarming over it – they were allowed to scan and scrutinize but _not_ disassemble – would facilitate it being expedited. The "watchers" – the so-called covert agents sent to oversee her work, had frowned at her pulse pistol, but she challenged them in her head to even _think_ about taking it. John was returning to Area 51 – with one of Moya's transport pods, no less, having wheedled one from the Moyans in exchange for "supplies".

D'Argo was helping John make up a list of things the Moyans could use, and their Earthly equivalents. Chiana refused to leave the Leviathan. Rygel had discovered sugar and had apparently eaten himself into some level of Hynerian gluttonous coma. Evigan Koiban, the quiet and serious Interion – to whom Aeryn thought she could like knowing – was inquiring as to human medical supplies and practice, hoping to no doubt replenish Moya's pharmacopeia.

_And help a human still out there?_ Nudged the back of her mind.

We didn't abandon him. Just like we didn't abandon the rest. We had no choice.

_Will he have seen it that way?_

…Frell. She knew John Crichton too well.

Apparently, several high-rankers were on their way to Area 51 to see John, and at least half-a-hundred new tech – no doubt more covert operatives among them – were on their way to Serendipity to "look over" her Prowler.

She shook her head, made her was across the compound to her offices and room. Sleep. That was the only thing she wanted right now. Too many conflicting emotions roiled within her and too many avenues she did not want her mind travelling down were presenting themselves.

Sleep didn't really help.

She had a dream, it felt familiar although she was certain she'd never had this dream before - and the dream she had was more a nightmare, but she could not remember much. It felt like a warning and a wish and somewhere someone was laughing hysterically, over the sound of a woman weeping savagely and a man screaming bloody murder - but these things were more felt than heard.

Just one part that frightened her more than any of the rest that she could remember – scenes of unbelievable devastation, ships burning, planets on fire, uncountable billions upon billions falling to perish into the depth of one man's rage.

"_Let 'em all burn." His voice is razor-edged steel, empty and soulless. In his heart, he is alone – his centre is gone, no guide, now lost forever. "They wanted slaughter? I'll show them slaughter."_

It had awoken her, made her feel lost and alone and hungry for something she could hold onto, something she could understand and keep for herself. There had been much despair there, in that dream, yet... somewhere through it had run a sliver of a silver line of... _hope_.

She understood hopes and dreams now.

She was sitting up on her cot, feeling sore and tired when a soldier pounded on her door.

"Officer Sun – we have a _ship coming in_ – and we can't identify it!"

Dream forgotten, they both took off at a run.

* * *

**JOHN BROUGHT THE POD DOWN** in one piece, albeit a tad shaky in the descent and a bump or two on the landing. All-in-all, he impressed himself, given how long it had been since he'd last flown one of these things. He expected his techs to come running out, start swarming all over it, but nothing moved. He shook his head. Not a surprise, with Williams and his stupid invocation of the Protocols. Thanks to the Moyans arrival, he'd managed to keep himself out and moving – and not locked in some government "protective" tomb somewhere.

Now that he had this technology – a more-or-less actual _supply_, he should be able to continue his freedom of movement, Williams and his ilk be damned. He was in the base, through the electronic security and heading down the elevator when he'd finally noticed that things were rather …quiet, and his apprehension began to grow. His approach _had_ been challenged by the traffic controllers and security officers.

Stepping out into Processing, it exploded into outright fear when he noted that the sergeant at the desk was slumped over. A quick check revealed the man _unconscious_, not dead, and he felt some small relief. Dead and unconscious were two entirely different intents. He picked up a phone, heard no tone, cursed silently. Security monitors showed people crumpled in hallways, slumped over at their desks or hanging back in their chairs. He stood and listened hard, could hear nothing. There were no distant alarms, no smells that shouldn't be there, no smoke, no chemicals.

The surface communications relay room was at the end of the hall.

Cautiously, eyes scanning every crevice, every shadow, John made his way to the comm room, past bodies on the floor, all simply unconscious. He'd made it in without incident, almost tripped over a woman on the floor, was relieved to see all the equipment still working. Whatever had happened here affected nothing else – as near as he could tell.

He was keying in his security code to access an outside line when he heard a footstep and made to turn just as a cold circle of metal – unmistakably the barrel of a gun – was pressed against the back of his neck.

"Don't move." A woman's voice told him. "Don't twitch. Don't even _think_ about twitching."

He obeyed. He'd expected this. It was just heading that way, anyway.

"Look… I can offer you…" John began, but the throaty voice merely said; with a slight jab of the pistol that he was to move,

"That's a good place to start. Sit down." John was abruptly shoved into an empty chair and spun around to face his captor.

Before him was a tall woman with fiery red hair, easily one of the most attractive women he'd ever encountered. She had a hand on her hip and another holding a pulse pistol, and a smile he could feel all the way to his toes. On a space above her right breast on the long black vest with many pockets she wore was a fierce and stylized skull-and-crossbones. Tall boots and a soft white blouse rounded out the look. She wore brown gloves, and the pulse pistol in her hand was new.

She was... well, hell, no bones about it -_ stunning_. Despite the peril he was no doubt in, he found himself having a very real problem looking away from her. Her body language seemed to say that she was well aware of the effect she was having on him.

"Well, _well_. John Crichton, is it? One of them, anyway." A smirk that implied something else flashed and vanished. "You're very famous where I come from." She gestured at the bodies around them. "Don't worry – asleep, not dead. Will be for a few arns, I'm afraid."

"And you are…?"

"Not important. Not yet. Suffice to say, you aren't going anywhere." She waved the gun at him for emphasis. "Oddly enough," she told him conversationally, "This _is_ rather how I pictured you as a pure tech."

"You know the other Crichton?" He was unable to stop himself from asking.

"Oh, yes," The smile she gave him then made him squirm in his chair, that throaty voice made him wish he had something with which to cover his lap. "Intimately."

"So we're alike, then?" He tried a smile, unable to help the thoughts in his head. She knew what they were, too.

"No. Not remotely." She showed straight white teeth. "He's a bit more... robust than you, from the looks of things." He was instantly annoyed.

"Are you a Peacekeeper? Look, I can't help you."

"No. And of _course_ you can. You can help me quite a bit, actually. Offer me something." The smile was broad, but it didn't last.

For a moment, she… stopped, and it seemed as if a sharp pain had stabbed through her head. She grabbed her head, seemed to be... fighting something, then ceased. After another moment, she looked up, stepped forward and pulled up a chair, sat in it gracefully.

She pulled her chair forward until their knees were touching, and then abruptly shoved her pistol into his groin. He winced.

Playtime was over.

"Enough of this dren. Let's talk," she said in a voice that had gone hard and direct. "Don't think for a moment that I won't shoot you." The smile she gave him then was completely predatory, and her violet eyes were chips of ice. Her voice changed, was clipped and businesslike. "You're going to tell me everything you know about wormholes. _Everything._"

John gave her a pained look.

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

"You can. I should tell you that I technically don't need you _alive_ to get the information I require. Your head is plenty." The sigh was mocking. "It's up to you, of course."

Trying to stall for time, John tried a different tack.

"Do you have a name, at least? I'd like to know who the hell I'm talking to, if it's all the same to you."

"Iriya Nerrimandi. It's of no use to you."

"That's a nice name." He paused a moment. "Who were you a few minutes ago..." Her eyes flashed, and she snapped,

"You won't distract me. It's irrelevant. _Wormholes_, please."

"Look, Iriya, was it? – I'm not telling you anything, and more human soldiers will be here shortly. If this place goes quiet for more than half-an-hour - or arn - troops are dispatched."

He smiled a small smile, as, if to illustrate his point, there was a clatter from outside, the sounds of marching feet.

"Case in point. Don't worry, you'll be treated well."

Iriya never moved, and the gun remained irritatingly in his crotch. The marching feet stomped into the room, and John turned his head to welcome them, wondering at Iriya's confidence in her sudden smile, his abruptly disappearing.

The soldiers marching in were unmistakably _Peacekeepers._

Right. _Of course_ they were.

It just goddamned _figured_.

* * *

**SERENDIPTITY WAS HOLDING ITS OWN,** but it wouldn't last much longer.

Being a covert facility, it was not heavily armed, guarded or provisioned, and what soldiers there had been were dwindling fast. The ship had slam-landed in the base's parking lot, and Aeryn had recognized it as a Marauder – by configuration, if not actual looks, the ship appearing very new – or certainly very experimental. It was a much larger class, as well.

More than a dozen Peacekeeper commandos burst from the ship.

The fighting was ferocious, commandos had penetrated the base quickly and were killing anyone they came across. Aeryn led what soldiers there were, and had managed to evacuate techs and support personnel behind her, but she knew it would only be a matter of time. She surmised they were after John, felt a perverse pleasure in knowing how disappointed they'd be when they discovered he was nowhere near here.

Sergeant Johansson had managed a distress call before he'd been killed, but she didn't know how far it'd get, the Marauder targeting the main comm array as it came down. Aeryn, as a special commando, knew how to fight in hallways and close quarters, knew how to create barriers and choke points, but ballistic weapons against pulse fire was a rather uneven fight, and humans were dropping much faster than Sebaceans.

Aeryn had been retreating down a sub-hallway, created a chokepoint from debris and had managed to kill another Peacekeeper when she and her remaining personnel came up against an armored door – one that led to the main labs - and her _Raptor _prototype.

Power flickered all over the base, and even as she reached for the code box on the door, it died completely. A moment later, and emergency lights flooded the hallway in a lurid red.

"_Aeryn Sun!"_ came rattling out of the shadows at the end of the hallway. _"Surrender yourself and we will cease our assault! You have 30 microts to comply_!"

Aeryn looked back at one of her seven 'troops' – a woman from reception, from the looks of her. "_Rothschild, Amanda"_, her name badge said.

"Key code 221312 to open that door." She checked the charge on her pistol. Good, so far. "Hurry. It's the most secure part of the base."

Rothschild turned and hit the keys with a shaky hand, but nothing happened. There was only a click and the dull _snick-clunk_ of heavier bolts sliding home.

_Frell. Yes – in the event of a catastrophic emergency, all codes are reset and only a single command code can override it. Frell! _

A command code Aeryn didn't have – it was secured in the base commander's office – back up the hallway and to the left.

Frell.

"_Officer Sun! You are out of time! Your answer!_"

Damn. She knew that they wanted her as leverage over John. She also knew she would rather not have the rest of these people massacred and the base destroyed. The only way to get that door open – which could have protected them long enough for help to have hopefully arrived, as the entire lab part of the complex was heavily reinforced in case of accidents – was past those Peacekeepers.

It wasn't a choice, really.

She had to surrender.

_Frell!_

* * *

**NERADA LAMM WAS NO FOOL.**

She divided her troops to their best effect – and the humans' defences were so weak, it would be nothing to overwhelm that base and capture Sun, which was only microts from fruition. Then a lever over Crichton, and his knowledge secure and she would turn from the service of others to her own agendas. Five troopers to secure Crichton, sent that twitchy Tech with them to secure her data on the human's plans. She had twenty. _Yes._ Ten in a frontal assault and five to flank, dropped off outside the base's perimeter just before they attacked.

Just in case.

Lamm allowed herself a rare smile.

It was just too easy.

* * *

**"WHAT ASSURANCES DO I HAVE THAT YOU'LL LEAVE?"** Aeryn called down the hallway.

"_Your choices are surrender or do not and we take you from the rubble. Choose. _Now."

Aeryn was about to acquiesce when Rothschild suddenly pointed at the door and exclaimed that it was coding open – _from the other side._

"Who was in there?" Aeryn asked, watching the lights on the keypad turn green one-by-one.

"No one." One of the security officers told her. "It had been locked down while you were away."

"Dren," she breathed. "Flanked. We can't take the chance. I'll have to surrender."

"You can't do that. As far as we know they'll kill us all and destroy the place anyway."

Aeryn knew that was more likely than not, but she also knew that the invaders did not have that strong a force, and Serendipity could not be incommunicado long before someone _would_ notice.

No choice.

Well, she never really had a real one, anyway.

"Very well," she called down. "I am coming alone. If you don't keep your side, I will force you to kill me – and your mission will fail." She looked back at the keypad, one green light from opening. "I'm coming now."

As the Peacekeeper mouthpiece at the end of the hallway started shouting instructions at her, the door suddenly opened.

Nothing happened.

Aeryn looked at the people behind her and urged them to run. Better to take the chance, she thought. They ran, and she waited. At the end of the hallway, the instructions droned on. As she turned to follow the base personnel through the door, a hard voice suddenly said, "Not you," and a pulse pistol was pointed squarely between her eyes.

On sheer reflex hers came up.

* * *

**"NO ONE ATTEMPT TO MOVE!"** The leader of the five Peacekeeper soldiers barked as they marched into the room. "You are our prisoners!"

"Just lovely." John muttered, wishing that Iriya would remove the pistol from his crotch, and a moment later got his wish when she stood, faced the soldiers.

"I am Subvertor Agent Iriya Nerrimandi. Authorization Mektha Level 11A." The Peacekeepers looked at one another. That was Special Rank, Special-coded. Only Scorpius and his kind had those levels. "Your assistance is required. I am taking command of your detachment."

"My mission supersedes yours," their commander told her. She simply smiled at him.

"I think not. Your mission is over." Her smile widened. "_Completely_ over, imposter." The man blinked.

"_Kill that man_." She pointed at their leader. "He is _Haxer_ – one of the Pirate Crichton's crew."

Tech Specialist Haver Sawer smiled a large smile of his own, shrugged and said simply, "You got me.", just as five rifles were suddenly pointed at him.

"Oh, hell," John groaned.

* * *

**AERYN SUN'S BRAIN DID A LITTLE FLIP, AND THEN FLIPPED BACK.**

The owner of the pulse pistol in her face was clad in blue-black leather trimmed with red and gold, a line of silver bars down one sleeve, three barbed silver needles on his breast, what appeared to be military unit patches on his other sleeve. An armored shoulder-piece had a stylized and ferocious-looking skull and crossbones on it. He was missing an eye and needed a shave, his hair longer and spikier, his face craggier and a little older, but she was unmistakably looking into a face she knew.

The doppelgänger. The "Other" Aeryn called him, on those rare occasions he had come up. He was bigger, much more strongly built - apparently he had worked hard because he was cut and solid - much better armed, and the one eye she could see was sharp and very, very cold.

"You're on my side or in my way," was all he said. She nodded once, brought down her pistol. He simply looked at her for another microt and then stepped past her, pulled another pistol and started walking toward the PK line at the end of the hallway.

_"Aeryn Sun! Come now!"_

To her complete surprise, he simply shouted, "Change of plans, fellas," and started firing – and all hell broke loose.

Troopers fell back, leaving two dead behind, pulse blasts filling the hallway and room beyond with deadly ricochets and starting fires. Aeryn didn't hesitate, she followed him out and killed another with a precise shot. She ducked behind a door jamb as shots came up the hallway down which the troopers retreated. Crichton stopped, fired a series of shots in return and kept going. One shot hit him in the shoulder, turned him with a grunt and Aeryn almost shouted in dismay, but he simply kept going. She then realized his coat was _armored all over_, and fell in behind him.

He never looked at her, and when the grenade rolled up the hallway at him, he just spun, shoved her abruptly into an open office and smoothly pivoted, _kicked the grenade back up the hallway_, and stepped into the office behind her, wrapped her in his longcoat and two very strong arms, and she found herself taking a deep breath just as it went off, bits of debris clicking against the leather of his coat.

There were muffled screams, and then silence.

"Well, then," was all he said, pulling his coat back, thrusting her from him, and stepping out and surveying the damage, Aeryn trying not to react, but to think.

_It was quick, thorough and completely professional,_ her mind kept saying. It was… _beautiful_.

They were all dead, they discovered, all but one. Badly injured, he'd managed to prop himself against the wall. Crichton plucked the rifle from his hands.

"How many more of you?" He asked, crouching down in front of the dying man. The Peacekeeper spat blood at him.

"Frell you." The trooper smirked through a smashed and bloody face. "This was only a diversion. By now, the other Crichton is our hands. You're too late."

Crichton stood, said "Whatever," and casually put the soldier out of his misery with a single shot. Aeryn blinked at the dispassionate attitude, but kept it to herself. His changes went much deeper than simple appearances. Of course they did.

She had other concerns, however.

"Look…" she began, finding it odd to speak to him, feeling strange that it should feel odd. "If what he said was true, we've got to…"

"He's fine," Crichton told her, moving past her, seemingly unconcerned, heading back the way they'd come. He also didn't seem to care if she followed him or not. She followed, anyway, as he doubtless knew she would.

"You don't seem to understand," she said as she watched him loose-limb it down the hallway, trying to focus on him and not how he moved or how he looked. "His knowledge is unencrypted. He can't be taken by…"

"Your boyfriend's _fine_!" he snapped abruptly at her, and she could tell it was more irritated at being considered ignorant than surface jealousy. He didn't really seem to _care_, one way or the other. She noted that, too.

She shut up and followed him into the lab complex, a large open area with her _Raptor_ prototype in the middle, surrounded by gantries and tools stations and computers. The surviving base personnel were nowhere to be seen, but a slim pale woman was walking slowly around it, stopping at intervals and seemingly doing something to the _Raptor._

"Who is that – and _what _is she doing?" Aeryn queried, pointing a slim finger, one hand going to her pistol.

"Shiv – " Crichton said in lieu of an answer, ignoring her. "How's it coming?" The calm quicksilver voice answered him, as she turned and wiped her hands.

"All the humans have been evacuated. All charges are set." He nodded, as Aeryn ejaculated,

"_Charges!_ _What_ charges? What – "

"Let's go," Crichton told her, walking toward a far door, Shiv already moving that way. He was halfway there, when he realized Sun hadn't followed.

"Officer Sun!" He called, snapping her out of it. "The longer you take, the farther they get."

Aeryn was torn, but it didn't take long for her to get a grip on herself. She looked over at the Other – no, the other _Crichton_, and nodded to herself. She had just a glimmer of …_something_, then, and decided.

_It was starting to make sense now_, something told her. _Trust your instincts._ Yes. It was past time she started.

She looked once at the _Raptor_, marched after him and his companion, and never looked back, not even when Serendipity blew sky-high.

* * *

**HAXER WEIGHED HIS OPTIONS.** Five pulse rifles and he talking fast, but convincing no one.

"I told you to kill him. _Now!" _Nerrimandi demanded, and he knew that was that. He could probably have run by now, but that wasn't in either his orders or part of the Plan.

Unfortunately, he didn't know what was actually supposed to happen at _this_ particular point in that plan.

Hax could see trigger fingers tightening…

…one of the troopers suddenly shrieked, a foot of _Dra'ak'ka_ lance jutting from his chest, and he was lifted off the air with a snarl and flung backward. Hax snap-kicked the trooper closest to him, breaking the man's neck and knocking him away.

The three remaining troopers backed off as a red-and-black armor clad Scarran female spun her "Arm of Death" and poised herself to leap among them.

_"Cha!"_ Haxer involuntarily exclaimed, and she as involuntarily glanced at him – opening a chance for the troopers to open fire. Chak'sa managed to dodge some, her motions hard-trained in the harshest arena in Peacekeeper space, but several shots got through, knocked her down. Haxer ignored his orders and bounded to her.

Iriya didn't hesitate. A gun to John's neck and she was ordering the three survivors to follow and cover her, which they did with alacrity. Haxer dragged a stunned Chak'sa behind a console, checked her over.

"You idiot!" she snapped at him angrily, trying to bat his hands away. "They're getting away with the other Crichton!" she shoved him away, but he came right back.

"You okay? No holes?" Chak'sa sighed, stood.

"No! I am fine. It's why I wear _armor_." She took a few steps to follow the running Peacekeepers and Crichton, when Haxer stopped her. Across the room, a heavy door boomed shut.

"He'll be fine. Forget him."

"What? What are you talking about? Crichton said to secure him!" Haxer just smiled at her, very glad to see her.

"I think, if you'll remember," he told, a dumb grin on his face, "That the Boss said you were to pull_ my_ eema from the fire,_ not_ rescue his duplicate."

Chak'sa allowed herself a small smile.

"You are too clever for your own good." She flexed, testing for wounds, found none. Satisfied, she said, "What were you thinking distracting me? You know better than that."

"Yeah, sorry about that. I was just really happy to see you." His smile was infectious, and she returned it. She reached out, touched his face, then gave him a small stinging slap.

"And I you. But if you do it again, they will call you 'corpse' and not Haxer."

"Ander."

"What?"

"Ander. Ander Daranderhel."

Chak'sa's smile widened.

"You have uncovered a memory?"

"It was more a dream. Haven't done that in a while. There was a woman in it. She called my name." He frowned, then smiled again. That woman would have to wait for another time. "That's my name. Ander Daranderhel."

"It is a very good start," she told him, happy for him, knowing that there had to be records somewhere, and if anyone could ferret them out, it was he.

"I hope you're right, Cha. Not so sure, myself." His doubts sprang up, but he put them aside. He had more pressing concerns. He clapped his hands together, looked at the mass of computer equipment before him, his smile going impish. She sent him a knowing look.

"We don't have much time. I scanned a large number of vehicles and aircraft en route to this location." She paused. "Miriya has betrayed us."

"No. She hasn't."

"Quite clearly she has," Chak'sa countered.

"Look, it's complicated. We really can't worry about that. The Boss knows, so no worries," he told her, seating himself comfortably. "This won't take long at all."

With Chak'sa's welcome hand on his shoulder – very, very glad she was there again - and as he plundered his way through what the humans laughingly called 'secure' systems, the newly-christened Ander shook his head to himself in wonder.

The Boss' plan had so far gone off without a hitch.

That was, he knew, usually when things went _very bad._


	5. Chapter 5

**JOHN EYED THE WOMEN** in front of him with trepidation, wondering how long the argument would go on.

"You may have the authorization, Agent, but I am under strict orders to return him to my Commander. This order comes from Scorpius, himself."

Iriya was piloting a sleek black craft, just large enough to squeeze them all into, and had been intent until the trooper spoke up.

"Scorpius is not here, I am."

"Nerada Lamm is my Captain, Agent. She expects the return of Crichton _immediately_."

"I told you that my authority supersedes hers in this instance."

The other two troopers were starting to look uncomfortable.

"Possibly. But my Commander is…."

"_Where_ precisely is your Commander? Give me the coordinates."

"Uh, look, ladies, I hate to interrupt…"

Iriya snapped a look back at him.

"If you speak again, Crichton, I _will_ shoot you."

"It's just that I'm no good to you…" he started quickly, as a pulse pistol was suddenly in his face. Another was instantly in Iriya's.

"I cannot allow you to injure him, Agent. He's too valuable."

John could see some rather heavy conflict raging behind Iriya's violet eyes, and waited to see who – or whatever it was in there – would win.

The tableau held for what seemed like long, long moments, and then Iriya seemed to reach some kind of decision.

"Your Commander's coordinates," she demanded. She glared at John a moment longer, and he could have sworn that they had changed, but he couldn't be sure, and he wasn't pushing his luck. "We will… discuss our priorities."

He kept his mouth shut. He was, he knew, in _serious_ shit, things having gone to hell rather quickly, but that had, until recently, been the whole point to his life.

The trooper hesitated, then nodded, rattled them off, and the craft they were in banked sharply to the north.

He knew from their chatter that another contingent of Peacekeepers had attacked Serendipity, and he hoped Aeryn was all right, figured she must be, since they'd begun murmuring about losing all comms with that group.

He just hoped someone would figure out some way to get him out of this.

* * *

**"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'YOU KNOW'?**

Aeryn stood, hands on hips, glaring at him. Her exasperation was writ plain, and Crichton briefly wondered when she'd gotten so free and easy with her emotions.

_Oh, yeah – five seconds after stepping on Talyn and bidding the rest of us a fond frell off._

He was glad he no longer gave a damn. Made things much easier. Hard decisions, sacrifices, dren like that.

"What I said." Crichton told her. He was calmly seated in a large leather chair, Shiv standing behind him, where she, it seemed, was always to be found. Her exotic looks drew many initial stares, but they didn't linger. People seemed to find her steady and blink-less gaze disconcerting. It always amused Crichton to see Shiv stare someone down. They always lost.

He glanced around at the people assembled in the large Situation Room, the walls ringed with monitors, a long, deep-black shiny table and more comfortable leather chairs. Everyone before him, with the exception of Shiv, Sun and about five heavily armed Marines, were seated.

He was at the head of the table – a good place for him, he thought – and had been introduced to a General Williams, at the other end, sitting next to him a lovely woman named Jocasta Akanke, several high rankers, and about a half-dozen politicians on the monitors, few he recognized. Three chairs away from, next to an empty one reserved for Sun sat Jack Crichton. He stared at the 'pirate version' of his son, and Crichton knew he had about a billion questions – but he regretted Jack would have to live in ignorance. Jack's son was home _already_, and he didn't need the twisted copy mucking things up, although that was kind of inevitable.

Crichton certainly didn't plan on _sticking around_.

He had no family, and wanted none.

"Would you care to explain that, please, Captain?" Williams asked from his end of the table.

"I know because I sent her after him." Crichton didn't like Williams' tone. He was reminded a little too much of Wilson in the testing facilities in Australia – in John's memories.

"_You_ did?"

Crichton looked at Aeryn as if she were a bit dim-witted.

"Of course I did."

"Why?" She demanded.

He shook his head slightly, a shake she found irritating. It was the _"Jeez-uz"_ shake, whatever that meant, the one John made when confronted by someone rather stubbornly stupid.

"So I would know where she _was_. Hence sending her in the first place."

"Who is this person?" Akanke asked.

"What difference would it make for you to know? Nothing you have is going to work on them, and you have nothing they want – except John."

"Whom they _already_ have," Aeryn reiterated.

He sent her a small smile.

"That's provisional." In frustration, Aeryn sat down. Jack patted her on the shoulder.

Williams again.

"Captain - we apparently tracked your ship earlier – and something else. Our trackers thought it was a meteor. Do you know what it was?"

"A 'borg Strike Team – a Revenger. No longer a threat." He told them. Aeryn blinked, and Jack nodded. She looked at Crichton. _A Revenger? They 'just' destroyed a Revenger? Even with that beautiful Vigilante he had, a Revenger – especially with borg – was no pushover. _She had other things to consider, however.

"That team - did you lead them here?" She asked, her tone still cross from being thought ignorant.

Crichton's one eye narrowed and Aeryn saw anger flare for a millisecond. Then a small smile played over his lips.

"No - you did." Disdainful.

From one of the monitors, one of the politicos – Secretary of Something – spoke up.

"_We appreciate your timely assistance at Serendipity. Unfortunate you couldn't prevent its destruction._"

"In the neighbourhood." He waved it away, shrugged, just a small movement of a shoulder. He looked at Aeryn as if he expected her to say something, but she simply stared back, remained silent.

Jack, of all people, went to the point.

"What do you want?"

Crichton sighed inaudibly, relaxed into the chair.

"To collapse the wormhole."

"You can't collapse the wormhole." Jack told him. So far, if Jack noticed the similarities between himself and John, he was showing a remarkable patience. His tone had an undercurrent of the question in his mind, however, a familiarity he'd have used with John. "Earth needs it. There must other ways."

"The only other one I can see that keeps this planet completely safe is to shoot your son in the head."

Jack blinked, looked startled, regained his composure.

"There have to be alternatives."

"There undoubtedly are. But will your son cooperate?"

"He understands the risks." Aeryn told him. He smirked at her.

"Does he? Scorpius knows _where_ the wormhole is. He's only waiting until his Carrier is finished. I left him sitting at a huge nexus of them, where his Carrier's been for monens. A Revenger and that strike team that hit you at Serendipity – were _sent by him_." A sneer. "John doesn't know _dick_ about the risks."

She slapped a hand on the table's glossy surface.

"His information is completely unencrypted – and _you_ handed him to Peacekeepers! Is this some kind of revenge…?"

"Don't flatter yourself." Testy. "I didn't hand him to anyone. He'll be fine."

"We only have your word for that." She looked away from him, glared back at him. Her demeanour was of one who expected him to act differently.

He smirked into the wither of her glower. Her expectations were the furthest thing from his mind.

"If you collapse the wormhole," Jack tried again, "It could take decades – _centuries_, for Humans to get into deep space."

Crichton seemed unmoved, despite Sun's continuing glare.

"You don't have the technology _now_ to exploit it. You won't have a viable transport system for _decades_ – if then – even _if_ the government doesn't try to hoard it and/or use it to dominate the planet. Do you think they're going to _share_ any of the new technology he's supposedly trying to give them?" He told the old man, jerking a thumb at the screens around them. On those screens, the politicos seemed irritated, but they contested nothing.

"I'm not blind. With wormholes…"

"Not the paragon of nature. They won't matter if you never get the technology to work – or your government uses it for war. Scorpius is closer."

"_You_ will consider alternatives, then?" Akanke inquired.

"Of course. I'm a reasonable man."

"You mentioned Scorpius. We know about him. We were given assurances that any contact with Peacekeepers was remote. Commander Crichton also assured us he could use the wormhole in Earth's defence. Any technology or its application is, unfortunately, classified." Akanke added.

Crichton laughed, but it wasn't pleasant.

"'Contact was remote'? _Jesus_, lady, you had _three_ alien encounters in _one day_. How's that for _remote_?" Akanke was looking at him, blinked. Crichton barked again.

"Classified? Nothing's classified. With my ship, I can look anywhere I want." He snorted, shook his head. "Your 'classified' tech is all due to John's promises, no? He offered you weapons and advanced computers and FTL drives." He shook his head. "Based on energy sources and technology this planet just _doesn't_ have, and driven by computer systems you can't emulate."

"He never promised anyone those things as they are." Aeryn snapped at him. "He knew full-well that none of the technology he brought will work here – but that doesn't stop them from retro-engineering it." She looked a little put-out. "And we _have_ made working fusion engines."

"None of which will do you a damn bit of good. You know what he has to do."

Akanke looked dubious.

"You'll help? Just like that?"

"Of course not." Crichton smiled, leaned onto the table, steepled his fingers. "I do have conditions." Slightly wider smile. "But you already knew that."

Akanke nodded. Of course she knew.

"Frankly, John's given you nothing."

Aeryn said crossly, "That's not true. We have a Hetch drive – there was the _Raptor_ until you…"

"Hetch _drives_." Crichton interrupted, correcting her. She stopped, looked suddenly suspicious.

"What?"

"_Four_ Hetch-drives, two operable." That got him a sharp look from Aeryn, and a curious look from Akanke – not to mention the suits.

"There are only _two_ Hetch-drives – the one from his module and the one being rebuilt for the _Raptor_ Project." Behind her, other faces were becoming strained and uncomfortable. "_Neither_ were operable."

Crichton smirked, held up a gloved hand, ticked off fingers as he spoke.

"The fake _Farscape's_ in Florida. Doesn't work. One here. It does. One in Australia, which also works, one in Alaska, which doesn't." A faint smile.

"_Uh, those working ones, uhm - are simply design prototypes – to check the eventual primary drive against."_ A guy in a dark suit on a monitor said_. "They don't _actually_ work..."_

Crichton tapped his eyepatch.

"No, _this_ doesn't actually work. What _you_ just said was a load of crap. See the difference?" The guy looked pissed and shut his mouth. Aeryn was looking suspicious again, only at the others around the table.

"John may have built them, but he's given you nothing. He _can't_. But _I_ can. I'll give you all you need."

"What about my son?" Jack brought it back to his chief concern.

"That's where the negotiations begin, yes?" Akanke inquired.

"I don't negotiate." Crichton told her, to her surprise. "You want technological superiority and what basically amounts to safety for the planet – I assume." Nods. "I'm not here to bargain. I can give you that."

"What_ do_ you want?" Aeryn.

"Nothing much. Part and parcel of how reasonable I am. I just want your complete cooperation. By that, I mean you stay the hell outta my way and do what you're told, when you're told, no matter what you're told." The smile again, this time with some teeth. "Easy."

There was sudden murmuring, startled imprecations and angry overlap. Aeryn looked at Crichton and had to fight down a sudden smile, as she looked at his relaxed figure. He was certainly far more confident than his counterpart.

"That's impossible," Williams told him above the hubbub. "What you're asking is…"

"I know what I'm asking." His tone implied that he knew that they didn't, not really.

"Impossible." Aeryn murmured, watching him. He heard her, that one blue eye glancing at her. He just shrugged, rose.

"Suit yourself." He saw them tense, saw the Marines tense.

"Where are you going?" Williams demanded.

"Where I like," Crichton told him, the hard shell falling back in place instantly, his voice flinty. The hand on his belt moved ever so slightly toward a pistol. Beside him, Shiv stepped into full view. She shifted balance minutely, and Aeryn could see that she intended violence. She also knew how unbelievably dangerous that woman was…

"Shivi'na Na'Carahad," Aeryn said loudly, cutting through the other voices. Crichton looked over at her. Shiv simply stared at the Marines. "Is a Thantados _assassin_ of the First Rank."

She continued when she had everyone's attention. Crichton wondered what she was up to with this. "If he wishes to leave, she will see to it that he will – even if he has to step over your corpses to do it." Williams opened his mouth, but she preempted him. "Yes. She _can_ kill your Marines and everyone else in the room, and none of you will see it coming. I advise you to stop talking and start listening."

For some reasons she couldn't identify, the slight nod Crichton gave her was rather… satisfying.

Shiv didn't relax, but she stepped back as Crichton's hand moved back away from his pistol.

"Captain…" Jack began. Here it came… "I have to ask…"

Instead of an answer, Crichton said to Aeryn, "You never told him." A pause, and a faintly guilty look from her, a look at her from Jack. "Of course you didn't. Understandable."

He turned to Jack, shook his head.

"I'm no one, Jack. You don't know me, you've never seen me before. What you think you see – isn't there." Jack opened his mouth, but Aeryn's hand on his arm stopped him. He looked at her, and she shook her head. He contemplated her for a moment, then looked away.

As Crichton turned away, his comm chirped.

"Go," He told it.

_"Sorry to interrupt, Boss, but I've got some stuff you should really see before you get too deep into the wheeling and dealing. Stuff concerning some place called Australia."_

Crichton eyed the assorted folks around him. Aeryn was staring at him, and he rather wished she'd stop.

She was beautiful, yes, and he could admit it, even now - everything he desired, absolutely, as distant as his home. But she felt nothing for him. He was the Other, the Creature, the thing with her lover's face, the nightmare, the unwanted variable that made their lives less, that meant danger and the unknown.

He could see her measuring him, his threat to her and John, as she should have, as was fitting. She had left a the massive hole in his chest, the one she had previously fit squarely into - but that was filled with an implacable hatred of fate and ice-blood and a sharp frigid darkness - that kept him warm now. It was all he had, all she had left him, all he was.

Aeryn Sun's Nothing.

"I'll be there shortly." An affirmative, and he killed the comm.

"You folks feel free to discuss what I've said among yourselves, but I wouldn't wait too long. As to my terms – well, you've heard them, and they're not negotiable." He told them, and he could hear Harve chuckling faintly in the back of his head. So far, so good. He had some time, just not much.

As he drew up to Williams, Crichton stopped, bent slightly down to the General.

"If you ever – " he began, "And I mean _ever_, threaten me or my crew again, I can guarantee you that you will _not_ like the consequences."

Without waiting for the reply, Crichton patted the man hard on the back, with a gruff, "Good boy", and proceeded on. Once gone, the table exploded into multiple voices all talking at once.

"Aeryn, honey," Jack leaned into her so as to be heard over the cacophony. "I think you should follow him."

Aeryn frowned at him, then patted his hand.

"I think you're right."

* * *

**IRIYA NERRIMANDI OWNED IT.**

She'd argued this point before. She'd been there first.

She glanced back at her prisoner, at his guards and frowned.

Unlike Crichton, there was no harmonious partnership with the other personality in her head.

Chosen at birth from her crèche to be an instrument of the Influence, she'd done her duty her entire life without question. As an exemplary Disruptor and Subvertor, she'd accomplished much in her youthful 45 cycles. When she'd been told she'd been selected to become a Deep Cover Agent, she didn't blink. She would serve, for what else was there?

Any trepidation she had about the mandatory implantation of her 'cover' – her 'auxiliary personality' - she kept to herself. When told that this personality would, for the most part, be in control of her body, she nodded and sat in the mechanism and had it implanted.

She'd also been assured that she could reassert control over the implantation if necessary, but for deep cover purposes, she would be essentially a control and an observer – independent, to execute her orders as she saw fit – as long as she got the results wanted by her superiors.

Independence for a Deep Cover Agent was _essential_. She had to be able to operate with a near-autonomy, to not be compromised by regular reports and frequent meetings. Any such would be folded into events as much as possible – an "illness" perhaps, a stay at a medical facility, those kinds of things.

What she had _not_ known – and had _not been told _(had only found out via the implant), just after Ogg'M'nendi had been destroyed was that her cover – frell it, fine – _Miriya_, had been 'readjusted' to focus _entirely_ on Crichton – and that her own body had also been subtly and pheromonally "readjusted" to become virtually irresistible to him.

So much for independence.

To say that Iriya had been put out would have put it mildly. At her last debrief, it had taken almost two weekens for her superiors to justify their actions – after all, she wasn't just some grunt or Scarran fodder - and she had accepted their reasons.

Until she'd been unceremoniously dumped onto that damn transport heading to Arenjuni. What in the frell had been the point of that? Yes, she'd gotten out of it, but what purpose did it serve? Was it punishment for her anger and somewhat-becoming-conditional obedience?

For the longest time, _Miriya_ had had no idea that she was not the prime consciousness in her body. For the most part, they were only aware of each other - and had the ability to interact, when they were being debriefed. Any other time, and only Miriya didn't know she wasn't alone.

Something - perhaps an error in the suppression procedure, had allowed Miriya to become conscious of Iriya's presence - and now she was _interacting_, and that simply shouldn't have been.

Miriya had found apparently it all _very_ amusing. Iriya had enough doubts without Miriya pushing more on her!

Not enough, to Miriya's liking. They had this argument before. That didn't mean she would simply give in.

_-Oh, you stupid bitch! Do you think that Marauder captain is going to let you keep this Crichton?-_

Watch your tongue. My authority supersedes any she may have.

_-But not Scorpius'! He undoubtedly sent them!-_

Of course he sent them. But this fighter will not get me back through the wormhole.

She heard Miriya sigh.

_-I could've had him – and much easier, too, I might add - if you'd not interfered.-_

It's _disgusting. _If it weren't for my purity dispensation…

_-…you'd still have liked it. You're an expert liar, but I live in here too.-_

_You_ were _designed_ to like wallowing with inferiors. It makes my skin…

_-…tingle. Admit it. He's very talented. As you like to point out at every opportunity – it _is_ your body.-_

Be silent. He's undoubtedly tracking us.

One of the downsides to having Crichton attracted to her was that the pheromones and hormone supplements made her attracted to _him_. Iriya couldn't deny it, but that didn't mean she liked the idea – at least on an intellectual level. Her flesh said something else. Talented… _fine._ She'd accede to that.

Damn it.

_-More than likely. He's more devious than you gave him credit.-_

Iriya ground her teeth. That was too true. Someone had seriously underestimated him.

_-Don't blame me! They said the reconditioning would work. We should have been irresistible. Not that I wasn't already…-_

Iriya looked back at her prize again. He was staring intently at her with two blue eyes.

We seem to be to that one.

_-Whatever blocks Crichton has, are obviously not shared by his duplicate.-_

We can use that. You're going to suggest it, no?

_-Of course. This one should be _easy_.-_

You saw the dossier. The deserter seems to have an inordinate control over his attention.

_-He loves her. But you also see how he's looking at us. We can use that too.-_

A sigh.

If we must. Truthfully, I do not want to deal with their commander.

_-They get the credit too. We didn't spend the last two cycles doing what we've done simply to give him up now.-_

Iriya knew Miriya had a point. They _had_ worked rather hard at this….

Very well. What do you suggest?

_-We need to be able to get the information out of his head. Like you said, we don't actually need him. Just what he knows about wormholes.-_

We have no such capability.

_-Not at the moment, no. But someone on this planet does, and I know where he is. I checked scans just before Crichton sent us out to that 'Area 51'.-_

I find his reasons suspicious.

_-He was testing us. Guess we failed.-_ Miriya laughed. –_Do you want to know who that person is or not?-_

We had no choice – and yes.

Miriya told her. Iriya shook her head. Half the universe seemed to stop by this backwater.

_-It seems like we've never really had one. A choice, I mean.-_

No, _we_ don't – but _I _do. I will return Crichton's knowledge, use my commendation to ask for a different life – and have you _purged_.

_-That's cold.-_

You're not real. You're a manufactured personality.

-_I feel real to myself. I certainly am real when I'm out there. I'm real in his arms.-_

Stop that!

_-Stop what? You could've have tried to stop me, y'know.-_

_I _was not the one in command of my body for the last two cycles!

That felt like a lie. Dren.

_-Well, Hezmana, that's a good thing. We wouldn't have had any fun at all.-_

It was _not_ "fun"! I will be _so_ very glad when you've been purged.

_-Hmmm. What_ will _you do after, I wonder?-_

As I said.

Iriya could practically feel Breannados roll her 'eyes'.

-_Sure. They'll let _that_ happen_. _Frell! You _enjoyed_ that life on Ogg'M'nendi. You enjoyed me in charge and you were enjoying being with Crichton. That was actually _living…_!"_

"Enough!" She yelled out loud. "I will listen to no more!" She slammed her blocks back down, but she knew the Breannados personality had been growing stronger – simply by dint of having been the dominant for as long as she had. She ignored the troopers looks and concentrated on flying to Miriya's remembered coordinates. She set up a scan run to activate when they got close. She knew they'd need a precise location.

She also knew, deep down – and she hated her for it – that Miriya was also very likely _right._

It wasn't going to stop her, however.

* * *

**THE _VENGEANCE_ SAT ON THE TARMAC,** and Crichton admitted that she gave him an immense sense of satisfaction every time he looked at her. The bright Nevada sun made her seem all the more black, all the more formidable-appearing.

His armored fist, right into Scorpius' throat.

"They are stubborn," Shiv said, as they stepped into the sunlight.

"Naturally. All they can see is what's in it for them. The rest of the planet can burn as long as they come out on top. Scorpius doesn't have to invade or attack – all he has to do is give them some guns and a couple of Prowlers and a few techs to explain it all, and they'd giftwrap ol' Johnny and hand him over on a silver plate."

"We are being followed," Shiv said casually.

"I'm aware. Sun."

"She is dedicated."

"Stubborn."

Neither stopped.

"Your plan is rather… involved."

"It'll work." He glanced at the sky. "Depending."

"On?"

"How predictable people are. So far, so good."

"You are making a great many assumptions."

He stopped, looked down at her. Shiv likewise halted.

"Shiv – you of all people should know the maxim 'Know thy enemy'."

"Are these people your enemy?"

"Not at the moment. But it won't take much." He resumed walking. Shiv followed, only a step behind. Aeryn was gaining on them. She was clearly meaning to catch them.

"Would you mind?" Crichton asked Shiv, indicating Sun, and kept walking. Shiv stopped, turned, waited for Sun to catch up. She had been clearly hoping to catch Crichton. Sun stopped just short of Shiv.

"I need to speak with him," Aeryn told her, her voice loaded with no small irritation.

"For what purpose?" Shiv asked, watching her carefully. _So this was the legendary Aeryn Sun? Curious._

"Are you his bodyguard?" Aeryn blinked at Shiv's short nod.

"And Second in Command." Aeryn watched Crichton approach the Vigilante, saw the hatch at the top of the forward landing strut slice open. A youngish man met Crichton at the top. "I can relay any message you may have."

"I'm coming with you. How's that for a message?" Aeryn made to step around her. Shiv admired her courage.

"I think not." Shiv stepped in front of her. Aeryn almost snapped at her in her frustration, but remembered just to whom – and what – she was talking.

"Peacekeepers have John – and they can't be allowed to keep him. If he's going after him…"

"I am unaware of any such undertaking."

"But he has to! We can't leave John…"

"We are under no obligation to retrieve him."

"The Peacekeepers have him!"

Shiv cocked her head at the frustrated woman before her.

"Where, do you suppose, they will take him?"

"_Back through the wormhole and Scorpius_! I would have thought that _obvious_!"

"It is not. This interaction serves no purpose." She turned. "Do not follow." Her comm spoke, then.

_ "Shiv."_

"Yes?" Her comm spoke again.

_ "You can tell Sun that they can't take him back through the wormhole because they didn't use _that _wormhole to get here. So she can relax. They aren't going anywhere." _A pause_. _The _Vengeance _powered up._ "We are, so get onboard." _There was another pause, and a dry,_ "Some special commando…" _drifted out before the comm cut. Aeryn had heard, sheopened her mouth to retort, bit her tongue.

Shiv acknowledged again, began to walk away. The belly of the _Vengeance _sliced open, and Aeryn saw its grapples lowering her Prowler to the pavement. Shiv had reached the landing strut already and was halfway up when the Vigilante began to lift off. The cargo doors sliced close, and Aeryn found herself clenching her teeth. She watched it rise and as it did, she saw it shimmer, and then _disappear_.

_What the frell! Vigilantes don't have…_ she abruptly smiled, shook her head in amazement as she marched to her Prowler.

'Relax', he'd said. Well, no. She couldn't do that.

However – a special commando she _was_, and she could definitely do something with _that. _

Didn't someone mention _Australia_?

* * *

**"Crichton,"** Shiv said when she entered Command. He glanced up at her.

"Yes?"

"You lied to Officer Sun." He leaned back, looked at her directly.

"How so?"

"Those Peacekeepers came via a different wormhole than we – quite likely the wormhole that actually links _to_ this system."

"Very likely."

"So they can leave when they wish."

He nodded.

"They could." He smiled slightly, turned back to the controls. Behind them, Haxer started chuckling. Both Chak'sa and Shiv raised an eyebrow at him. "But they won't."

"Why is that?" The _Vengeance _banked, heading southeast. Crichton relaxed into his seat, seemed content to watch the landscape below flash by.

"Stark." Was all he said.

* * *

**THE OUTBACK IN AUSTRALIA** is considered by many to be an inhospitable wasteland, which couldn't be farther from the truth. It isn't particularly verdant, or welcoming, but the Aboriginals have lived there successfully for thousands of years, and the multitude of various – if deadly- creatures that call it home give the lie to the term 'wasteland'.

Still, that reputation keeps most – except tourists looking for "Crocodile-whomever" – from wandering willy-nilly all over, and thus makes it a perfect location for one of the most secret – and secure – covert facilities on the planet. Buried under the Woomera Prohibited Area, the largest land-based defence and aerospace range in the world, is a complex called rather blandly, Facility 595, but which the local employees called "The Shonky Walkabout", or just _Shonky._

Begun in the 1940's at the outbreak of WWII, Shonky had grown through the Cold War and expanded considerably through the 80's and 90's, and it now housed some of the most sophisticated experimental technology on Earth, as well as two functional fusion plants developed by "Crighter's Tech" as one technician waggishly called the team, and the only other working Human-built Hetch-drive.

It also had something John had called the "Repository", a small vault, which under his contract with various governments for his knowledge and tech, was secure from everyone except him. It had one of the most ingenious and technically-adept time locks anyone there had ever seen, and John had been amused by their awe, since he'd actually bought it on a Commerce World ages ago – where it had been labeled as a _child's toy_.

It also comfortably housed a unique extraterrestrial, flown there at his request shortly after regaining consciousness at Area 51, and his continued dire warnings about the destruction of the planet by Peacekeepers and wormholes. Since John's capture, they'd begun to take what they'd considered a 'raving lunatic' far more seriously.

When Stark had asked to be allowed outside – rather abruptly it seemed, since the man asked for little – they balked. He insisted, and they relented – after all, Shonky _was_ under a top secret area roughly the size of England. He would, for all intents and purposes, be literally in the middle of nowhere.

Thus it was, that approximately ten minutes and 43 seconds after stepping out onto the surface, Stark was promptly kidnapped by a sleek black craft that looked for all the world like a stealth fighter without wings.

The commander of the base would be roundly reprimanded.

The craft stolen from the _Vengeance _was nearly to the Pacific Ocean when the Prowler set off a series of sonic booms as it tore across the Outback to catch it.

The Captain of the Shrouded Vigilante that watched it all happen from orbit chuckled to himself for almost a full five minutes.

* * *

**IT HAD INFORMATION NOW.**

It had scanned and assimilated and collated and it understood as much as it could from what it had gathered. Activity in the Nexus Hub was increasing. The linkage that served this system had settled, but it remained a concern. The vessel studying the Hub had departed that location only recently, but it was only a matter of time.

He had power, even enough to close the linkage if necessary, but that was highest on the list of his priorities. The one below with full disclosure was on the verge of being compromised.

Even though he was not at peak, was still vulnerable, he could wait no longer.

The Knowledge was to be guarded at all costs.

Even if the entire planet below had to be glassed to the bedrock.

At the site of Jack Crichton's landing on the moon, the flag so diligently planted by he and his crew of Icarus 2 began to wave in the near-vacuum of the moon's surface. Dust settled on long-abandoned equipment vibrated and danced in the low gravity, and a shock suddenly rumbled silently through the landing site. Several metres away, a dark crack split the lunar landscape, followed by a convulsion that threw rock and dust into the black sky.

Far below over the Pacific Ocean, the only Banik to ever come to Earth grabbed his head and began screaming.

* * *

**NEXT TIME ON**

**FARSCAPE - THE FREEBOOTER ERA:**

_**EARTHFALL: SYNCHRONICITY**_


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